Free Republic

At $286.4 billion, the highway bill just passed by Congress is the most expensive public works legislation in US history. In addition to funding the interstate highway system and other federal transportation programs, it sets a new record for pork-barrel spending, earmarking $24 billion for a staggering 6,376 pet projects, spread among virtually every congressional district in the land. The enormous bill -- 1,752 pages long -- wasn't made available for public inspection until just before it was brought to a vote, and so, as The New York Times noted, ''it is safe to bet that none of the lawmakers,...

Whoever heard of spending $500,000 of American citizens' tax money to build a parking lot for a private business? Whoever heard of a supposedly conservative congressman perpetrating and defending such an abuse? And whoever heard of a businessman so brazen as to defend such crass patronage as being "the American system"? Well, Kentuckians have heard it all now, thanks to U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers. The Somerset Republican has amassed such power as one of the U.S. House's appropriations "cardinals" that even the blatant misuse of public funds for a private parking lot slides quietly past all the paper tigers who...

All right. Enough of this geek stuff. Back to what matters. [FWIW, there were some technical glitches with Ecumenical Insanity the past day or two -- sionnsar] As if we needed it, here's more proof (via Ted Olsen at Christianity Today Weblog) that many who claim to be pro-choice are actually pro-abortion and anti-choice. The evidence comes from members of Congress upset that the recently passed omnibus spending bill contained this provision: None of the funds made available in this Act may be made available to a Federal agency or program, or to a State or local government, if such...

<p>Wasn't the era of big government supposed to be over?</p> <p>"We know big government does not have all the answers. We know there's not a program for every problem. We have worked to give the American people a smaller, less bureaucratic government in Washington. And we have to give the American people one that lives within its means. The era of big government is over."</p>

Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay calls his party's $373 billion spending bill "worthy of the national challenges it meets." Republican House Appropriations Committee Chairman Bill Young says it's "the best product we could provide.” Democratic Rep. David Obey says it's not only "a bad bill" but "a gratuitous insult to every worker entitled to overtime pay." The president of the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste, Tom Schatz says not only are the Republicans three months behind in presenting the bill, they've apparently spent the time to "pile on the pork." DeLay says the bill is an "achievement in...

Tired of pork barrel spending? We can turn loose one of these in the Democratic side of the House and Senate and get rid of some of it... Cut the pork now!

Halibut and more smells up Congress By ROBERT D. NOVAK AS President Bush announced the government's reorganization to combat terrorism, the Senate quietly concluded a charade of business as usual under cover of a national crisis. In the dead of the night, it passed an "emergency" anti-terrorism appropriations bill that in fact was loaded down with extraneous spending. The appropriators like to put bills like this on a fast, closed train, shielded from the public. Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Phil Gramm of Texas battled to slow down and open the runaway express. But scarcely one-third of their...