More and more pork
November 16, 2006| By Nathaniel Ward
“Congress’s pork gravy train rolls on despite promises to slow or stop it,” Heritage budget analysts Brian Riedl and Michelle Muccio report. “As Congress returns to finish the final 11 appropriations bills for fiscal year 2007, it will take up House and Senate bills currently containing an estimated 10,000 pork projects, about as many as last year.”
Contained in these bills are some extravagant special-interest handouts.
- $6,371,000 for wood utilization research in 10 states
- $1,000,000 for the Clinton School of Public Service in Little Rock, Arkansas
- $603,409 for pecan scab research in Byron, Georgia
- $591,000 for the Montana Sheep Institute
- $400,000 to extend a pedestrian trail in Hammond, Indiana
- $365,156 for potato breeding in Aberdeen, Idaho
- $300,000 for the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame in Morristown, New Jersey
- $150,000 to demolish an abandoned church in Raytown, Missouri
And that just scratches the surface. Click here to read a longer list of some of the more egregious pork-barrel earmarks.
“Members of Congress,” Riedl and Muccio write, “should listen to the demands of frustrated voters and eliminate these projects.”
Nathaniel Ward is the Editor of MyHeritage.org—a website for members and supporters of The Heritage Foundation.