Pork-barrel politics

by Doug Crowe
Wednesday, May 28, 2008 9:22 AM MDT

I watched David Letterman interview Sen. John McCain on the “Late Show” a while back.

I kinda like ol' John. He has a bit of a temper, does not suffer fools gladly, is a tad prideful and possesses a wicked sense of humor -- all characteristics I admire.

I am particularly partial to a well-aimed zinger. It tickled me when McCain quipped that "the approval rating of Congress is now so low that basically only blood relatives and paid staffers remain supportive."

The next morning, I got on the Internet to research this topic. I found the senator's one-liner to be right on target.

Recent polls show public approval of the performance of the U.S. Congress to be less than 20 percent n or four out of five Americans feel this august body is not doing a good job.

Polls also reveal this ratio reverses when state residents are asked to evaluate just their state's congressional representatives.

In this instance, four out of five (80 percent) feel their delegation is doing a good job. Why the difference?

In my opinion, it is explainable, at least in part, by pork!

No, not baby-back ribs, but pork-barrel politics, which is defined as "government spending intended to benefit constituents of a politician in return for their political support, either in the form of campaign contributions or votes."

This term originated early in American history when slaves sometimes were given a barrel of salt pork as a reward and had to compete among themselves to get their share of it.

Today, the term typically is applied to funding for government programs whose economic or service benefits are concentrated in a particular area, but whose costs are spread among all taxpayers.

Pork-barrel spending often is allocated through last-minute additions to appropriation bills. The politician who supplies constituents with considerable funding is said to be "bringing home the bacon."

One of the most famous (or infamous) pork-barrel projects is the "Big Dig" in Boston. The Big Dig was a project to take a pre-existing 3.5-mile highway and relocate it under ground.

In the end, it cost taxpayers more than $14.5 billion dollars -n just over $4 billion per mile!

Another pork-barrel of renown was the proposed "Bridge to Nowhere" in rural Alaska. If a public outcry had not (perhaps only temporarily) stopped the project, Alaska's congressional delegation would have earmarked more than $300 million in the federal budget to build a bridge from Ketchikan (population 8,000) to Gravina Island (population 50).

The bridge was to be nearly as long as the Golden Gate Bridge and taller than the Brooklyn Bridge. All this to replace a seven-minute ferry ride from the town of Ketchikan to Ketchikan Airport on Gravina Island!

These examples are merely two of the more blatant assaults on the federal treasury. There are many hundreds of pork projects inserted into the federal budget every year.

The Star-Trib reported recently that last year alone they totaled $18 billion. Even though lawmakers know this makes Congress look bad, they don't care.

Their main concern is often re-election, and a way to that is to raid the federal treasury and send the money back home.

Of course, it goes without saying that this is not true of Wyoming's congressional delegation. Any pork-barrel funding they are able to secure for us is absolutely deserved. Four out of five of us love them.

But, I've gotta tell ya, congressional representatives from the other 49 states are a bunch of self-serving, wasteful, greedy crooks!

Four out of five of us hate them!

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