- Delegate Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam) for $500,000 for Brown Tree Snakes control and interdiction in Guam.(apparently there is a brown tree snake problem on the island)
- Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and Representative Ciro Rodriguez (D-Texas) for $693,000 for beef improvement research.(like Texas needs better cows!)
- $4.8 million for wood utilization research in 11 states requested by 13 senators and 10 representatives. (almost $5 million to figure out how to make better use of that resource we all know and love as "WOOD"?????)
Check out the following websites to find out how much pork your favorite member of Congress has managed to coerce, tuck, hide, sneak into Congressional spending bills CAGW Homepage and the CAGW Pigbook (this is the organization's disclosure of some of our Congress biggest porkers).
Some of this stuff is just too good to be made up,
Mr. Thompson
I think that this is absolutely ridiculous! I don't think that this money needs to be used for these "special" projects, it needs to be used to help pay back our debt! I feel that if people are so passionate about these types of research, they should use their own dollars or get funded by a local business instead of using the government's and the citizens money.
ReplyDelete-Jeanne Depman hr 5
Personally, as someone who does not really like to eat meat even, I just think about how silly it seems that other people, even vegetarians, are paying for other people's beef improvement, when in reality, this type of food is what may be causing America's obesity problems and so also their health care costs.
ReplyDeleteThe brown snake problem seems reasonable since it could've been a harm to the people in our territory of Guam.
Same for wood utilization, I think it has a place in need since we need to look out for our environment and make better use of resources.
-Vera Novitskaia
Hour 3 US Government
I really like these ideas. the only problem is that it does not focus entirely on helping the community. or even the US. if we untimately have to pay in order to know, find, or have acess to things that our tax dollars are paying for, then there is no point using our money! great, improving cow meat! now is everyone going to have access to it? Brown tree snakes? are we going to make them extinct? utilizing wood? I'm sure you could hire kids to find good ideas for them but why do you need to use them in the first place. why not just let them shade us? and protect us from the wind? If these are for the people, and given to them to bribe them to vote them into office...that's fine, but i dont believe you should be allowed to use a persons own money to bribe them.
ReplyDeleteThings like these make me so frustrated! Our government is constantly trying to come up with ways to save money, or ways to magically come up with more and yet our government is spending this much money on not useless things but, things that only help a select few. Personally I agree with Jeanne, in that if these things are such a problem they should go to large local businesses and ask for the money. This has made me really think about what all my tax dollars are being used for that I don't know about.
ReplyDeleteSara Spavin hr.5
I think helping out Guam with their snake issue isn't so bad, it's kind of what we (the U.S.) is known for. And although $500,000 might seem like a lot, compared to our total national debt that's like pocket change... but it sucks that it's our tax dollars. $4.8 million for wood is pretty ridiculous, though. I agree with Sara and Jeanne, it's really annoying when the government is trying to get everybody pumped up about saving money and whatnot when their just tapping into our tax money and doing whatever they want with it.
ReplyDeleteLacey Brannick hr. 1
The 3 examples mentioned in the article may be poor uses of tax payers money, however im sure there are many pork barrel projects that tax paying citizens have benefited from. For example, part of Rochester's flood control project was funded by pork barrel spending. Without the flood control project, we could be experiencing another flood this spring like the flood in 1978. The issue is really more about legislators being fair and transparent about where and how federal tax money is given to local communities.
ReplyDeleteI think spending our tax money on those specific projects are uncalled for. I do agree with Daniel that maybe some of the pork barrel projects are necessary for our money to go towards. But with our economy, they need to decide which projects are necessary and what aren't. We can't just save our money for every project we wish to do when it could be going towards paying off our national debt. Even the 500,000 dollars from the Brown Tree Snakes Fund could help, even though it doesn't seem like anything comapred to our deficit. It makes people agry knowing that their tax money isn't even helping the economy, but is going towards projects like these. I think congress should have a limit on how much money they can put towards pork barrels then decide which projects are the most important.
ReplyDeleteKatie Fuoss Hr. 1
All I can say is wow! Recently our government almost shutdown because of the debt our nation faces and excessive spending! When I hear of spending like this, I have to say well no wonder. I think our government needs a major overhaul beginning with new elected people and cut in or reallocation of spending. We have our own problems to fix right here in our country from poverty and hungry children. Not to mention the trouble the Social Security is in, there will not be any for my generation unless change is done! Still waiting for the change that Obama promised!
ReplyDeleteKristin 1st hour
Pork barrel spending is one of the many outrageous items and traditions that congress continues to embrace. Despite hearing many political ads attacking pork barrel spending, everything changes when the candidate is actually elected and in the House or the Senate. Granted the total amount of pork barrel spending is a fairly minor portion of the federal budget, according to the "Pigbook" $6 billion is 59% of all the pork barrel spending this year, or about $10 billion total, when compared to the $1.3 trillion deficit, or the some $4 trillion total expenditures. This is still $10 billion that is used to buy vote on bills, which i believe is fundamentally wrong, a person in Congress should not vote on a bill only to gain something for their district, they should only vote for the bill if it is something they fundamentally believe in. I believe that there is a simple solution to this problem as well, require congress to only on a single issue or bill. Currently while the bill is in committees additions can be added, however, I believe the beast and most honest way to pass a bill is if each addition was simply introduced as its own piece of legislature, with nothing further attached to it. Another way to accomplish this is to allow Congress to vote on each line of a bill, and if a majority votes against that line, it gets deleted. I further believe that if the Republicans end up getting their way in the form of no tax increases and simply cuts in spending to balance the budget, the amount of pork berral spending would greatly increase. With the currently Republican controlled House, which is where all spending bills must originate, the Republicans can easily take a primarily Democratic bill, attach extensive additions, and then blame the Democrats for continuing their out of control spending.
ReplyDeleteOur nation has a huge problem with uneccessary spending. There is no reason we need to spend money making meat taste better.I mean comeon people. I can understand the federal spending on attempting to decreasethe population of brown snakes because that is an actual possibility of harm to citizens. However if us americans want meat to taste better than those companies can get investors that aren't tapping into our federal tax budget. We could actually use thatmkoney forsomething that improves our nation instead of just makingus fatter. We coulduse thatmoney to repair roads, to pay off a small part of our dead or, oh . . . I don'tknow. . . actually put thatmoney into social security because we are going to need it. Asit is my generation isn't going to see a centwhen we reitre. I used to be proud to say I am an American,but when we talk about all the idiotic things the government can do and all the crazy things on the news, I'm not so sure I can accurately make that statement.
ReplyDeleteBrie B. Hour 1
I'm surprise on how the government will engage in any way to save money, and theirs no progress shown dhat money is being saved all were seeing is more spending. The government is giving money to support this issue like theirs nothing more important to invest in. I strongly believe our government is lacking, and really need to make a change not for the image but for the good sake. Plus their are so many different ways this issue can be dealt with but "using" the government as support for this useless matter brings nothing to the table.
ReplyDelete