CNN on latest pork-barrel budget

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-11-24 01:37pm

Yeah, the line-item veto was good, Clinton worked wonders with it, although if anything he used it too sparingly.

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2004-11-24 01:50pm

Joe wrote:Yeah, the line-item veto was good, Clinton worked wonders with it, although if anything he used it too sparingly.

What? I thought the bill to give it to the President failed? Because if it did pass, it gives the President an enormous amount of leverage against any particular group of senators; just threaten to nuke their pork.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2004-11-24 01:54pm

There was a successful line-item veto during the mid-90's, but SCOTUS struck it down.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-11-24 02:19pm

I doubt piddledick projects like wild hog control and barley gene mapping add up to more than a few billion dollars. If you really want to bring the budget back in line, you need to take the axe to entire useless cabinet departments--Education and Energy would be a good start. Then start working over Defense's budget with a scalpel. An unnecessary new cafeteria at a national park visitor's center might cost three million dollars. An unnecessary new submarine will cost three billion. Transportation is the home of giant pork projects for districts that don't have any defense contractors--let the states pay the price for their own poor urban planning, rather than soaking the rest of us for another giant highway project that won't solve the problem.

I'm pretty sure you could balance the budget by taking just those three steps. After that, who gives a fuck if the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame gets $300,000 worth of Federal loot?

Guardsman Bass · Post by **Guardsman Bass** » 2004-11-24 03:24pm

RedImperator wrote:I doubt piddledick projects like wild hog control and barley gene mapping add up to more than a few billion dollars. If you really want to bring the budget back in line, you need to take the axe to entire useless cabinet departments--Education and Energy would be a good start. Then start working over Defense's budget with a scalpel. An unnecessary new cafeteria at a national park visitor's center might cost three million dollars. An unnecessary new submarine will cost three billion. Transportation is the home of giant pork projects for districts that don't have any defense contractors--let the states pay the price for their own poor urban planning, rather than soaking the rest of us for another giant highway project that won't solve the problem.

I'm pretty sure you could balance the budget by taking just those three steps. After that, who gives a fuck if the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame gets $300,000 worth of Federal loot?

That transportation part is strange; my state is paying for a damn 1 billion dollar highway expansion out of state taxpayer politics. I thought the Federal govt only payed for interstates, and (hopefully)there's only a limited number of those that can be built in a state.

I give a fuck if the Hall gets 300,000- that's my 1/1000 cent in taxes you're talking about!

Post by **Mr Bean** » 2004-11-24 03:30pm

Faram wrote:It is so much easier to get worked up about gay marriage and other easy to comprehend issues.

This would require some thought and people is lazy and accept whatever FOX says is ok.

Fox got worked up over this as well, if that logic held true the people should be pissed but thier not because there are "bigger" things to worry about

The American public only realy has the attention span to focus on one... maaaybe two problems at a time with a few exceptions(Social Security and Medicare to be specific)

Post by **Sea Skimmer** » 2004-11-24 05:12pm

Personally I do get worked up over Pork barrel spending. If where going to waste money, we could at least throw it as more shinny military toys. Though fertilizer research doesn't seem like a waste of money to me, considering all the environmental problems linked to the stuff we use these days.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2004-11-24 08:53pm

I'm pretty sure you could balance the budget by taking just those three steps. After that, who gives a fuck if the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame gets $300,000 worth of Federal loot?

I'm surprised you didn't mention axeing the DEA.

Questor · Post by **Questor** » 2004-11-24 09:01pm

Col. Crackpot wrote:Pork Barrel Spending: Not Just For Liberals Anymore!

the best example was when Trent Lott managed to sneak contruction contracts for 2 Wasp class LHD's into the budget a few years back. That way his good ol' boys at Ingallis Shipyards had something to do. See, that gives you a good perspective on the scope of the problem. A Senator was able to tack on TWO FUCKING AIRCRAFT CARRIERS that the Navy didn't even want into the budget.

Isn't one of those named for him?

Checking FAS.org, yep. LHD-8, costing 1.5 billion dollars.

Here's the link. Its in the middle of the page.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2004-11-24 10:31pm

Jason L. Miles wrote:
Col. Crackpot wrote:Pork Barrel Spending: Not Just For Liberals Anymore!

the best example was when Trent Lott managed to sneak contruction contracts for 2 Wasp class LHD's into the budget a few years back. That way his good ol' boys at Ingallis Shipyards had something to do. See, that gives you a good perspective on the scope of the problem. A Senator was able to tack on TWO FUCKING AIRCRAFT CARRIERS that the Navy didn't even want into the budget.
Isn't one of those named for him?

Checking FAS.org, yep. LHD-8, costing 1.5 billion dollars.

Here's the link. Its in the middle of the page.

Good ol' Trent Loot...

Though as an aside, these ships make far more sense than another nuclear supercarrier.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2004-11-24 10:39pm

Sea Skimmer wrote:Personally I do get worked up over Pork barrel spending. If where going to waste money, we could at least throw it as more shinny military toys. Though fertilizer research doesn't seem like a waste of money to me, considering all the environmental problems linked to the stuff we use these days.

It needs to go into making better microbes for doing shit. I need a well paid career, dammit.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-11-24 10:57pm

HemlockGrey wrote:
I'm pretty sure you could balance the budget by taking just those three steps. After that, who gives a fuck if the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame gets $300,000 worth of Federal loot?
I'm surprised you didn't mention axeing the DEA.

That goes without saying. Think of me like Cato--at the end of any statement I make about government policy, even if it's like, "The Federal government should shift funds away from new highway construction to encourage urban densification", just add "And the DEA should be abolished."

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2004-11-25 12:09am

The best solution to this, of course, would be to give the power to draft legislation to a disinterested body of some sort, so that the House and the Senate can only say "yes" or "no" to a bill which has been presented to them rather than getting to write them up themselves and tossing all sorts of worthless shit into them.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-11-25 02:45am

RedImperator wrote:I doubt piddledick projects like wild hog control and barley gene mapping add up to more than a few billion dollars.

Don't be so sure. When John McCain can stand there listing them off for half an hour straight, and the budget weighs in at more than 1000 pages, it's entirely possible that you're being "nickel-and-dimed to death", to use an old turn of phrase.

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-11-25 10:05am

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:The best solution to this, of course, would be to give the power to draft legislation to a disinterested body of some sort, so that the House and the Senate can only say "yes" or "no" to a bill which has been presented to them rather than getting to write them up themselves and tossing all sorts of worthless shit into them.

I'm pretty sure that would take a Constitutional Amendment... and why would Congress create a Constitutional Amendment designed to hamstring themselves when it comes to pork barrel spending? Kind of a catch-22.

The Duchess of Zeon · Post by **The Duchess of Zeon** » 2004-11-25 10:35am

Gil Hamilton wrote: I'm pretty sure that would take a Constitutional Amendment... and why would Congress create a Constitutional Amendment designed to hamstring themselves when it comes to pork barrel spending? Kind of a catch-22.

Best doth not mean practical, Gil.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-11-25 11:09am

Darth Wong wrote:
RedImperator wrote:I doubt piddledick projects like wild hog control and barley gene mapping add up to more than a few billion dollars.
Don't be so sure. When John McCain can stand there listing them off for half an hour straight, and the budget weighs in at more than 1000 pages, it's entirely possible that you're being "nickel-and-dimed to death", to use an old turn of phrase.

Possible, but it takes a lot of hog control to equal one interstate highway. And the Defense budget is where the biggest pork barrel items wind up. I'm certainly opposed to small scale pork, but you could spend a month going through the budget cutting it out and still not put the Federal government in the black.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-11-25 02:05pm

Politics is about algae and stagnation...

congress are just the plicostumus and the other bottom feeders....

TrailerParkJawa · Post by **TrailerParkJawa** » 2004-11-25 06:47pm

I find a wild hog control program to contain a certain amount of irony as an example of pork-barrel spending.

California has a problem with wild hogs, to my knowledge we don't use federal dollars to control them unless they are tearing up federal parks. Seems pest control, is a state issue to me.

MKSheppard · Post by **MKSheppard** » 2004-11-25 07:01pm

RedImperator wrote:"The Federal government should shift funds away from new highway construction to encourage urban densification"

Actually no, that makes the A Country larger and the B country smaller.
We must have a dispersed population to survive Laydown with a large
enough base intact!

Gil Hamilton · Post by **Gil Hamilton** » 2004-11-25 07:02pm

An interesting side story to the Massive Spending Bill (CNN called it that, not me).
I can dress my links!

Bush wanted $230 million for sex-ed programs that don't mention birth control and stress abstinance only and got 131 of it?

I liked this quote in the article (in regards to the fact that the studies on whether abstinance only sex-ed programs have any effect at all on sexual activity et cetera in teens):

"We don't need a study, if I remember my biology correctly, to show us that those people who are sexually abstinent have a zero chance of becoming pregnant or getting someone pregnant or contracting a sexually transmitted disease," said Wade Horn, the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services in charge of federal abstinence funding.

Thanks, genius.

Jalinth · Post by **Jalinth** » 2004-11-25 07:36pm

Gil Hamilton wrote:An interesting side story to the Massive Spending Bill (CNN called it that, not me).
I can dress my links!

Bush wanted $230 million for sex-ed programs that don't mention birth control and stress abstinance only and got 131 of it?

I liked this quote in the article (in regards to the fact that the studies on whether abstinance only sex-ed programs have any effect at all on sexual activity et cetera in teens):
"We don't need a study, if I remember my biology correctly, to show us that those people who are sexually abstinent have a zero chance of becoming pregnant or getting someone pregnant or contracting a sexually transmitted disease," said Wade Horn, the assistant secretary of Health and Human Services in charge of federal abstinence funding.
Thanks, genius.

Obviously the concept of effectiveness (as in - do the kids actually take it to heart) is lost on this guy.

Yes, abstinence is the most effective method when practiced. And we are dealing with teenagers here - who love practicing sex more than practicing abstinence (most adults do as well).

Its like all of the no smoking, anti-drug programs. You fund those that prove effective. Often, you need to involve teenagers themselves to find out what works and what is tuned out as preaching.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2004-11-25 08:41pm

This is like saying that it's better to teach kids safe driving practices than to make them wear seatbelts. Any idiot can see that a combination of both approaches is the best one, but nooooooo, we can't have that.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2004-11-25 09:43pm

watch it they have such a hard on for cavat epor that they may just help out the genepool buy doing away with seatbelts and air bags all togehter, I'm sure smog filters will be the first to go....

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2004-11-25 10:36pm

MKSheppard wrote:
RedImperator wrote:"The Federal government should shift funds away from new highway construction to encourage urban densification"
Actually no, that makes the A Country larger and the B country smaller.
We must have a dispersed population to survive Laydown with a large
enough base intact!

It does nothing of the sort. I'm not talking about encouraging rural dwellers to come to the city, I'm talking about cutting back sprawl among existing urban dwellers.