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The entire cost of rebuilding for Katrina damage could be paid for instead of borrowing by taking the pork out of these bills.

And Republicans should suck it up and be the first ones to suggest just that, and then move forward to do it. They are losing voters every day with their big spending. I live in an area that attracts mostly retirees and that is ALL they are talking about and most of them have been voting Republican for over 30-40 years.

The politicians are well aware of what they could cut but they are all spoiled, while telling their constituents that we all will have to sacrifice , they are the ones that need to act like adults and cut the crap already!

Talking about moon walks and things like that should be postponed!

For all the very justified moaning/whining about tangible, high-profile pork (like bridges to nowhere & such), bacon is a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the federal budget. There are greater structural issues at play here. Entitlements & such like Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. Seriously pork is not good & maybe bad, But some people need to understand proportion & scale. The transportation bill, which covers 5 years, has 24 billion in earmarks. At least one in every congressional district (except one, Rep Flakes district in Arizona). So 24 divided by 5, that’s under 5 billion a year in earmarks over the next five years. That’s under 100 million per state per year. Is that HUGE?!?!. And it is admirable that some citizens are willing to give up their 8 million dollar parking garages & 50 million dollar bridges & 3 million dollar bike trails, but the overall sum of transportation pork is hardly anything in the big picture. And certainly not nearly enough to even make a dent in the Katrina efforts. Sooooooooo, no borrowing then? Well, as Delay said "My answer to those that want to offset the spending is sure, bring me the offsets, I'll be glad to do it. But nobody has been able to come up with any yet," the Texas Republican told reporters at his weekly briefing. http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050914-120153-3878r.htm BTW, these "special projects" do their part to keep the constituency natives happy. YUP, someone is fighting for them too! next, the Energy Bill, a 12.3 billion dollars OVER TEN YEARS. ?

And what doesn't make sense about the Repub spending habbits of late - they are not buying any of the Liberal's votes, just loosing fiscal conservative's votes. They are cutting their own throats. The attempt to build the "compassionate conservative" image is a giant failure.