Hogs Gone Wild:
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) criticized Congress for passing an omnibus spending package that funds nine of the 13 fiscal year 2005 appropriations bills. The $388 billion 2005 Omnibus Appropriations Act is temporarily being held up after members of Congress expressed outrage over the discovery of an obscure line in the 1,690-page bill that would give the chairmen of the Appropriations Committees and their staff assistants the authority to access the income tax returns of any American.
While lawmakers and President Bush lauded the omnibus for holding domestic spending, excluding defense and foreign aid, members of Congress showed no restraint in their hunger for pork-barrel projects. The
thousands of earmarks lurking in the bill include: $3.5 million for bus acquisition in Atlanta, Ga.; $2 million for kitchen relocation in Fairbanks North Star Borough in Fairbanks, Alaska; $1.5 million for a demonstration project to transport naturally chilled water from Lake Ontario to Lake Onondaga; $500,000 for the Kincaid Park Soccer and Nordic Ski Center in Anchorage, Alaska; $250,000 for the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tenn.; $200,000 for Fenton Street Village pedestrian linkages in Montgomery Co., Md.; $100,000 for a municipal swimming pool in Ottawa, Kan.; $80,000 for the San Diego Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center; $75,000 for the Paper Industry International Hall of Fame in Appleton, Wis.; $35,000 for the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame; $25,000 for fitness equipment for the YMCA in Bradford County, Pa., $200,000 for the Aviation Hall of Fame; $100,000 for the Punxsutawney Weather Museum; $50,000 to control Missouri's wild-hog problem; $1 million for the Norwegian American Foundation in Seattle; $335,000 to protect North Dakota's sunflowers from blackbirds; $4 million for the International Fertilizer Development Center in Alabama; $443,000 to develop salmon-fortified baby food & $350,000 for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
This, my friends, is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg of Congressional irresponsibility with taxpayer money. Billions of dollars are being spent because of a pork system which Congress refuses to control. Christmas for Congress is not December 25th - it is whenever a spending bill is put forward. The same Congressmen who pontificate about the homeless or the poor or the uninsured are the same ones who are salivating over their share of the bacon. $80,000 for a San Diego transgender community center could feed a few hungry children in San Diego, ya think?
....from sea to shining sea