Monday, March 16, 2009
Politics / Woods Lamar Alexander: Pork Is Good
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 10:18 AM
"All the money for Oak Ridge was in this bill, and if it hasn't passed, we would have lost 2,500 jobs in one day. So there have been bad specific appropriations by congressmen and senators that need to be criticized. I've tried to be very careful with all the ones I represent. If I told the Clarksville crowd that came to see me every year about what it needs for its military families, if I said, 'I don't do that, here's Barack Obama's phone number,' they'd probably run me into Kentucky. ... The system needs to be reformed. But you know if you have a couple of bad acts at the Grand Ole Opry, you don't cancel the Opry, you cancel the acts. That's what we need to do here. "If a senator doesn't try to help those things, what's a senator supposed to do?"Good question. Are you listening, Jim Cooper?
Comments (5)
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I agree with Lamar. Those are good projects. Pig fart studies to the contrary notwithstanding, a lot of these pet projects are worthy. I don't quite understand how this whole hysteria about pork has gotten so out of hand. In most cases, they are good constituent service. Are you listening, Jim Cooper?
Speaking of whom, doesn't he remind you of Ralph Nader? That same stubborn, self-righteous, inflexibility? Scary.
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As much as I dislike Lamar(!) I have to agree with him on this. Repairing the dam before it breeches and destroys life and property is a good thing.
I am no expert but I think instead of going after pork we should concentrate on wasteful spending, no bid contracts and farm subsidies going to rich people and multi-national corporations.
Good arguments, Stella and Fox. A lot of what's described as pork is actually good stuff, like Head Start funding in the last stimulus bill. I think the problem is the lack of vetting that goes into earmarks, since they're just tacked onto bills without scrutiny. So while fixing a damn might be good, it also breeds the bridge to nowhere Alaska but no money for the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis. It doesn't allow for setting priorities, attacking the most pressing problems first, or professional vetting. It's based on who has the juice to attach something to a bill, so you get funding for things that are 100 lines down on the list of priorities, but no funding for the top items.
