Debt Free

On average, about 40% of every dollar you make isn't yours to spend. It goes to the government for a variety of reasons in the form of taxes. Now, don't get me wrong. Taxes are an essential part of a civilized society. We look to our Federal, State and local governments to provide us with any number of things, from transportation, research, and national defense, to law enforcement, public safety and schools. As a civilized society, we expect them to efficiently (we may be a bit idealistic) provide us with just that.

It's sad that so much of our tax dollars are spent surreptitiously, with those little earmarks slipped into this bill and that, in response to the “I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine” way that business gets done inside the beltway. Known by the euphemism “pork”, these little bits of financial mischief give swine and one of my favorite foods, barbecue, a bad name. One of the favorite tactics of our enlightened porksters is to slip in their pet project into appropriations bills that are completely unrelated to the pork project, but are deemed vital enough that they will be voted through with little objection. The senator or congressional member gets federal money sent back to their district that they can point to during their reelection campaign as an example of their proficiency in helping Mr & Mrs Voter.

As an example of just how insidious this whole process is, I can point you to Citizens Against Government Waste, a non-partisian organization that tracks just such fiscally irresponsible nonsense as it applies to your hard earned (by you, not the your congressperson) tax dollars. They released their 2007 Indefensible Defense Pork list today that gives a glimpse into the inner workings of the used car lot that is the halls of our government on Capitol Hill. I'm not suggesting that some of these pork projects don't have merit. On the contrary, there are some very meritorious uses of our tax dollars contained therein, but they don't relate one wit to national defense or the military.

Here are some examples of your government at waste:

• $1,600,000 for the New York Structural Biology Center - Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), and Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)
  

• $3,000,000 for “The First Tee,” - House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) Aims to improve young people's lives by exposing them to the joys of Tiger's favorite sport.
  

• An astounding $25,000,000 of your tax dollars for the Hawaii Federal Health Care Network, added by Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii). I'm definitely not against Hawaiians being healthy, but how exactly does this qualify as a defense appropriation?

• Inouye's other big earmark was $2,000,000 for brown tree snakes. Unlike some people, I actually like snakes, and wish no ill will toward the brown tree variety, but unless we can find some way to enlist them in special operations units for intelligence gathering or ambushing enemy troops, money for them does not belong in the defense appropriations bill.
  

• $5,000,000 for Project SOAR, added by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Rep. Bruce Braley (D-Iowa), and Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa). According tho their website, project SOAR “...development of literacy among preschool children in Head Start programs, as well as supporting teens and parents serving as Teen Literacy Coaches and Parent Literacy Leaders as they develop their own literacy, leadership, and employability skills” A worthwhile cause to be sure, but why exactly does it belong in the defense appropriations bill? The whole subject of funding education at the federal, instead of the state and local level is a subject for another debate.
  

• $20,000,000 for historically black colleges and universities, added by Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.). Again, a worthwhile use of funds. Again, I'm a huge proponent of education. We need it to have the kind of employees that businesses need to compete in the world marketplace, and the innovative goods and services that America is known for. But again, how exactly does this relate to defense and the military? (unless the graduates of these colleges will all go to work on DARPA projects, developing new and innovative technologies to benefit our military)
  

These are just a small example of the (are you sitting down) over 2,000 such earmarks in this year's defense appropriations bill. Amazingly enough it actually represents a substantial drop over last year's version. Although this relates to the defense appropriations bill, your congressional members and senators play similar games with every other appropriations measure before them during the legislative session. Cannot our 535 members of the House and Senate stop this massive “Bridges to Nowhere” style of government that causes the waste of (many) billions of our tax dollars, that we have to dig to find out about? Citizens Against Government Waste are doing great work, stop by and check out the rest of the Pork. Hey, it's almost time for lunch!!