Pork Barrel Politics

Are you outraged by the appalling Congressional spending of your tax dollars?

No? Then you probably don't know what Congress is really doing with our money.


Last month, the House and the Senate passed emergency supplemental appropriations bills to continue funding military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, providing an excellent opportunity for some Congressmen to 'earmark' funds for their favorite pet projects with no regard to fiscal responsibility or national priorities like our troops.

Last month's troop funding bills were especially outrageous and included all of the following items, completely unrelated to our war efforts:

$74 million for peanut storage costs
$50 million for asbestos mitigation at the U.S. Capitol Plant
$60.4 million for salmon fisheries in the Klamath River region in California and Oregon
$100 million for citrus assistance
$16 million for security upgrades to House of Representatives office buildings
$3.5 million for guided tours of the US Capitol
$20 million for cricket eradication
$40 million for Christmas, ornamental, nursery and potted tree assistance
$25 million for spinach growers
$95 million for dairy farmers
$13 million for Ewe land replacement and retention
$6.4 million for the House of Representatives' salaries and expense accounts

In fiscal year 2006, Congress stuffed 9,963 projects into the appropriations bills, and wasted $29 billion of our tax dollars.

$13.5 million for the International Fund for Ireland, which helped finance the World Toilet Summit
$6,435,000 for wood utilization research
$1,000,000 for the Water-free Urinal Conservation Initiative
$500,000 for the Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, N.C
$1,300,000 for berry research in Alaska
$4,200,000 for shrimp aquaculture research
$1,000,000 for methane desalination systems in Hawaii
$8,270,000 for breath alcohol testing equipment
$2,300,000 for the International Fertilizer Development Center

Did any of these have an impact on the quality of your life?

(Political Cartoonist: Eric Allie)