Thanks Roger, that helps a little bit, knowing what is driving this insanity.
The insanity is being driven by federal funding, around 10 billion a year last time I saw a reliable figure. It’s 100% pure American pork. I just love the way the two parties have agreed to substitute “ear marks” every time they talk about pork-barreling. They want to be sure that people don’t talk about biggest part of pork-barreling - the huge programs that go along year after year pumping money out of tax-payers’ pockets and out to the really successful organized criminals. At the end of the day, they’ll settle on the idea that “ear marks” are good for the states, and nobody should want to lose theirs.