Say Anything Blog

Remember when Democrats were campaigning for the Congressional majority in 2006 and Nancy Pelosi was promising earmark reform that would restrict pork spending?  Well, either she was lying about that or she’s such an incompetent leader that it has never come to pass.  Not only are her Democrats voting in favor of keeping pork alive, pork spending is now higher than ever.

WASHINGTON — Another attempt to put a moratorium on earmarks — local pet projects slipped into legislation —- failed Wednesday, a day after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insisted that an earmark freeze was still a possibility. The House voted against a Republican-backed plan 215 to 199.

Republicans timed their effort to coincide with the release of the annual Congressional Pig Book, distributed by the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste. The pig book details pork-barrel spending and was rolled out with pig-costumed staffers pushing barrels.

Overall pork barrel spending went up 30 percent in the 2008 fiscal year and the number of pet projects jumped by 337 percent — to more than 11,600. The cost of all the earmarked projects was $17.2 billion

To be fair, the top three porkers in Congress are all Republicans: Senators Ted Stevens, Thad Cochran and Richard Shelby.

Seems to me that we’re never going to get pork barrel spending in hand until politicians actually want to get it in hand and stop using it as a vehicle for quid pro quo, nepotism and favoritism.