Funding the War on Spinach

This practice of adding PORK to Bills/Laws is deplorable. This is the latest alarming example. Maybe it is time to enact a law that provides a relavency test. If is isn't relavent to the Bill, it can't be included. This concept is simple, direct, cost effective, and logical. Unfortunately, these are all principles that seem foreign to our governments practices.

What's abhorant is the legislatures running up the deficit for the sake of votes - the country be damned. Is it any wonder we are becoming so jaded in our feelings toward our legislatures.

What can I as a tax payer do about these earmarks? Is there no way to fight this spending abuse? How is Sen. Colburn's truth in spending bill going? Can I help? Pauline Blanka, Leonard, MI.

Is it possible to find out who sponsered each of the bills, or amendments, listed in Funding the War on Spinach?

It isn't pleasant to learn such things, but it's valuable: thanks to Mr. Carter for the posting. Is it possible to learn which individuals were primarily responsible for the individual provisions? There are issues of accountability here, or there ought to be.

HI
I AM A FATHER OF A SOLDIER IN IRAQ.
I HAD TO PAY FOR A METAL DETECTOR FOR MY SON TO LOOK FOR WEAPONS CACHES IN BAGHDAD.
That's money out of my pocket so my son can do a better job at stopping the insurgents in Iraq.
CAN I GET MONEY TO PAY FOR THE METAL DETECTOR, just a little from the PEANUT FARMERS FUND.................................
Got any comments let me know.
Other then that, please pray for my son while he sweeps Baghdad for weapons without the metal detector until it arrives......
Bless you all for ALL that you do.
A father of a SOLDIER
Mike Rutland
Costa Mesa, California

As a former taxpayer & now diabled on a fixed income, I find your extreme amount of funding for things such as 74 MILLION DOLLARS FOR PEANUT STORAGE, ETC., UNCONCIONABLE WHILE YOU ARE CUTTING MEDICAID FUNDS TO THOSE OF US WHO ARE THE MOST NEEDY. I WAS TAUGHT THAT OUR GOVERNMENT WAS CREATED FOR THE PEOPLE,& BY THE PEOPLE. I have seen little or no evidence of that in a VERY LONG TIME ,especially since you have broken EVERY SINGLE PROMISE WHILE CAMPAIGNING FOR YOUR ELECTIONS.I wonder what it will take for the politicians to actually do what they say they are going to promise. May God help you. Karen Boos

Any congressmen or senators who added these pork bills should be publicly whipped then impeached. This would put a stop to their extravagant efforts to buy votes. It must be stopped! These politicians are spending our nation into bankruptcy without regard to our children and our grandchildren.

I have only this to say about our so called leaders...to quote a President from my Childhood in a biography of his life:PLAIN SPEAKING...Mr. Truman stated :"Statesmen are born"(these men go into office and spend their lives in the 'service of' their fellow countrymen); "politicans are excreted, they go into to office to serve themselves and gain power & wealth at the peoples' expense" .....It is a very sad thing that we are not much more than a sewer with very negligable statesmen present.When $$$$ became more important than honor and our Moral obligations to GOD and our fellow man, the same old pattern of 'rot' set in as in all past ages. May God have mercy on those who have any honor left and deliver them from the corruption in which they must serve. On top of that the country is subjected to the 'mouth' of Ms.(ref. the VIEW-3-15) O'Donnell ...If she thinks so little of her nation, why does she stay? Thank you for allowing this --I love my country and despise what we are becoming. We had better wake up before it is too late to even do this.

I have only this to say about our so called leaders...to quote a President from my Childhood in a biography of his life:PLAIN SPEAKING...Mr. Truman stated :"Statesmen are born"(these men go into office and spend their lives in the 'service of' their fellow countrymen); "politicans are excreted, they go into to office to serve themselves and gain power & wealth at the peoples' expense" .....It is a very sad thing that we are not much more than a sewer with very negligible statesmen present.When $$$$ became more important than honor and our Moral obligations to GOD and our fellow man, the same old pattern of 'rot' set in as in all past ages. May God have mercy on those who have any honor left and deliver them from the corruption in which they must serve. On top of that the country is subjected to the 'mouth' of Ms.(ref. the VIEW-3-15) O'Donnell ...If she thinks so little of her nation, why does she stay? Thank you for allowing this --I love my country and despise what we are becoming. We had better wake up before it is too late to even do this.

It seems to me that this type of practice, of putting all sorts of things under the heading of helping fund out military needs to be stopped. I don't know what all of these are for. Some of them seem like things that could be needed. But it's dishonest and wrong to say that this money is going to fund our military. The disgusting thing is. Then we hear quoted in public all the numbers, for how much money is being spent on the war. What a pack of lies. There needs to be accountability with our politicians. Tell the truth about where you're spending it. There may be some need for help with particular farmers, or the areas affected by our disasters. But, come on politicians, tell the truth. Put the things under the categories they belong in. Our military deserves better than this!!! Much better!!! Thanks for printing it out. I appreciate knowing about the shenanigans. Some of the other commenters have expressed it very well. We are disgusted!!! Our men and women out there putting themselves on the line need to have what they need. We need to take care of them well, and we need to provide properly for their families, and for their needs when they come home. And we don't need lies before the nation and the world about what amount we say we're spending on this.

This is to all of congress and the Senate:PLEASE do what is right. The voters of the United States of America DO NOT WANT YOU TO ADD "PORK" TO ANYTHING. Why do you think it's ok to waste millions of tax payer dollars? WHY?

To really understand who is guilty of the pork-barrel spending we need to know who were the sponsors of the bills that saddled the taxpayers with this kind of debt. Who was the Chairperson in a position to deny adding these bills to this "Support the Troops" legislation. [The sum of the spending bills appears to be $1,781,800,000; and includes $6.4 million into House of Representatives salaries and expense accounts? If divided equally that legislative manuevering just put about $15,000 into the pocket of each representative - to help them do their job of course.]
Can you imagine the pressure to "Support the troops" balanced against spending $1.781 billion.
If a Senator votes no, will anyone listen to an explanation that he didn't want to vote for the pork-barrel spending?
Would we be better off if the president had line item veto?

Again... this happens *every time* there is a bill that is near-certain to pass. Everyone with a pet project tries to stick an ammendment in, hoping that the pressure to pass the bill will be so great that ammendments will not recieve a great deal of attention, and certinly wont be allowed to delay passage.

It happens. Short of a major rewrite of the legislative procedure, cant be stoped. Just look up who added each ammendment, and take it into account next election.

Perhaps the FRC should make a note of the waste on those scorecards they publish?

After reading the comments previously posted regarding "piggy-back" funding, it appears that there are many, thinking citizens who are incensed by audacious legislators who fail in statesmanship. I join their ranks while expressing frustration at our helplessness in an effective means of preventing such waste of tax dollars. We have little control of legislators once elected, but mass communication by the populace does have some effect. FRC may provide some leadership in "bundling" our complaints so that the effect of opinion by citizens can make a difference. What new ideas can be offered us?
Sincerely, hudd

Honesty and Integrity from our elected officials is expected (and deserved) by the American people! After all we are paying their salaries. But there is NO honesty or integrity in earmarking money for all sorts of things and allowing the taxpayers of America to believe it is being spent to support our soldiers!!

Certainly the money to support our troops should be approved. But when other things are tagged on that are not related to that support, they should vote it down and rewrite it. If they would do that every time it would soon stop happening. Unless – there are so many Representatives adding “pork” that it would pass anyway.
I strongly believe the President should have Line Item Veto power!! Americans should keep these things in mind when deciding who to vote for. Not just how we are affected individually, but how we are affected as a country and what’s best for the greater good of all.

I appreciate what organizations like Focus on the Family Action, and Family Research Council do to keep America informed! Without groups like this dishonesty and landslide legislation would pass virtually unnoticed and unannounced by our nation’s liberal media, until it was too late.

"Certainly the money to support our troops should be approved. But when other things are tagged on that are not related to that support, they should vote it down and rewrite it."

Nice idea, but it would result in acts like this being delayed for years of bickering over every last line. A better solution would be to stop these getting in to start with - perhaps give future acts a first paragraph which strictly defines what areas the remainder of the act may cover. This one, for example, would state "This act may only perform functions relating to military funding." Anything that didn't come under that catagory just wouldn't be permitted.

"I strongly believe the President should have Line Item Veto power!"

Very, very bad idea. Its far too much power for a single individual. All it would achieve is reversing the situation - rather than wastful projects being added, nessicary ones would be taken out due to the views of just one individual. Bush would probably use it to cut the funding to all federal funding for comprehensive sex-education programs, while a more liberal president conversly might use it to cut funding for abstinance-only programs. And so on in all other issues. Either way, its just so much power that its overriding the representative democratic process. What is the point of electing repsentatives when a *single* representative can make it impossible for them to do anything he dislikes?

Adding these things on to such an important bill is deplorable. (the kindest word I can think of).

My heart goes out to Mike Rutland, who commented earlier. God bless you and protect your son. Now, as senators are elected, write to them and tell them how you feel. Urge them to write a law that would stop the add-ons to any bill, especially, as it was stated, one that is important and is certain to be passed. And let it be known which senators are responsible for doing this.

the very saddest thing is that most americans do not even care about the"pork", just too busy forming their own "opinion' on what truth is to them. The names of the people who initiated this pork barrel stuff and those who voted on them are what we should be seeing in the newspaper. The very reason I do not buy the newspaper nor do I watch TV. I do not get the "truth" from the news. grs

I'm going to vomit.

The Democrats made sound like they wouldn't have the big pork barrel of the last six years. What a disappointment! There is no real differance.