Watching the O-man and his minions Queen Nancy and Whiney Harry is an exercise in fiscal frustration.
Under the cover of a federal budget so large that almost no one knows what they've hidden in it, they've stuffed so much pork into the spending bills that it looks a pot bellied pig on steroids.
So, starting today, The Oldtimer is gonna start pointin' out some of this silliness, with the help of 2009 Congressional Pig Book, produced by Citizens Against Government Waste.
The Congressional Pig Book is CAGW's annual compilation of the pork-barrel projects in the federal budget.
The 2009 Pig Book identifies 10,160 projects at a cost of $19.6 billion in the 12 Appropriations Acts for fiscal 2009.
A "pork" project is a line-item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures.
Starting today, one pork cutlet will be highlighted each day at the end of the normal weekday post.
For clearer identification, these Pig Book items will be shown in pink, of course.
Here's the first one:
$1,791,000 by Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee member Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) for swine odor and manure management research in Ames. According to the Agriculture Research Service’s website, the purpose of the research is to “generate and integrate knowledge for evaluation and development of new management practices that minimize nutrient excretion, malodorous emissions, and the release of pathogens into the environment as well as have a positive impact on animal health.”
In an effort to defend his earmark on the Senate floor, Sen. Harkin summed up its ridiculous nature succinctly: “I’m sure that David Letterman will probably be talking about it and Jay Leno will be talking about it, we’ve got $1.8 million to study why pigs smell.”
