Pork: It's What Your Government Is Cooking Up

Pork... the other white meat.
Pork... a food Jews don't eat.
Pork... what it takes to buy a congressional seat.

Everyone is sick of the practice of decorating legislation with billions of dollars in pet projects and federal contracts, but more than 11,000 earmarks worth about $15 billion in total made its way into congressional legislation this year. Millions of dollars go to lobbying firms that help companies, universities, local governments and others secure funds from the federal government... who in turn reward their benefactors with campaign contributions. One lobbyist said, "I know a bunch of members that if you go in to see them, somewhere in the conversation they somehow say, 'Well, we were looking through our list of campaign contributors and didn't happen to see you there.' Is there a quid pro quo? No, not directly, but you'd have to be pretty dense not to figure it out." Defenders of earmarks note that the Founding Fathers explicitly gave Congress control over spending. And earmarks make up less than 2 percent of the annual spending bills passed each year. What do you think?

Your Government at Work

So the top two U.S. Air Force officials have been given the ax... politically of course. Defense Secretary Gates announced at a Pentagon news conference that he had accepted the resignations of Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley and Air Force Secretary Michael Wynne. The shake up comes due to two embarrassing incidents in the past year. First, a B-52 bomber was mistakenly armed with six nuclear-tipped cruise missiles and flown across the country without anyone realizing nuclear weapons were aboard, and then four electrical fuses for ballistic missile warheads were mistakenly sent to Taiwan in the place of helicopter batteries. Lets also not forget the incident in April where the Pentagon inspector general found that a $50 million contract to promote the Thunderbirds aerial stunt team was tainted by improper influence and preferential treatment. But really, would you expect any less from those in political positions?

Well, how do you feel about the government helping to provide free broadband internet? The FCC is considering a vote on a proposal to auction an unused piece of 25 megahertz wireless spectrum, with the condition that the winning bidder offer free Internet access and filter out obscene content on part of those airwaves. While the plan addresses criticism from consumer advocates who for some reason think it is the governments job to get broadband into more U.S. households, it may also be praised from anti-obscenity groups. Does this smell like pork to anyone else in the room? But the real issues here... trading the first amendment for free internet... sounds like a plan?