This made me laugh yesterday, the earmarks(pork) in this new spending bill include:

1.) research of pig odor in Iowa

2.) removing tatoo's of gang members in Los Angeles

3.) Polyneasan Canoe Rides for people in Hawaii

This pork barrel spending is a joke and even some democrats don;t even like this bill. The voting of this bill has been postponed. I can't believe though right after we just spent 787 billion dollars on the stimulus bill these pork barrel projects are on this bill. You have got to be kidding me. Washington(D.C.) needs to get with the program and both the Democrats and Republicans need to get with the program! Some of these earmarks are from Republicans too.

This made me laugh yesterday, the earmarks(pork) in this new spending bill include:

1.) research of pig odor in Iowa

2.) removing tatoo's of gang members in Los Angeles

3.) Polyneasan Canoe Rides for people in Hawaii

This pork barrel spending is a joke and even some democrats don;t even like this bill. The voting of this bill has been postponed. I can't believe though right after we just spent 787 billion dollars on the stimulus bill these pork barrel projects are on this bill. You have got to be kidding me. Washington(D.C.) needs to get with the program and both the Democrats and Republicans need to get with the program! Some of these earmarks are from Republicans too.
what percentage of this bill is "pork", exactly? and how do you define pork? are you concerned that several of the complaints about so-called "pork" -- jindal's prespammersite rejection of "volcano research," as if we're not supposed to prevent natural disasters, sarah palin's ridiculing of "fruit fly research" when fruit fly research is the touchstone of modern genetics -- have turned out to not only be valuable and essential programs, but that jindal and palin's complaints about them have simply propagated the image of the conservatives as being backwards and opposed to scientific progress?

and what, dear sir, is your suggestion for fixing the current economic crisis? hint: you are not allowed to use the words "tax cuts" or "socialism" in your answer, as we tried tax cuts for the last eight years and they haven't worked, and it's quite obvious the right wing has no idea what the word "Socialism" means.

so yes, let's hear your solution, please, mr. suddenly-fiscally-responsible. the conservatives have left a truly disgusting mess for the country and i have to be honest, i'm surprised that cons are not ashamed to show their faces in public.

How much for buying new red herrings for right-wing bloggers?
???

The real money, the big money is going to prop up the failures of capitalism for just a few more months.  It's much more fun to laugh about pig odor in Iowa than it is to watch the grim reaper coming for your country.

what percentage of this bill is "pork", exactly? and how do you define pork? are you concerned that several of the complaints about so-called "pork" -- jindal's prespammersite rejection of "volcano research," as if we're not supposed to prevent natural disasters, sarah palin's ridiculing of "fruit fly research" when fruit fly research is the touchstone of modern genetics -- have turned out to not only be valuable and essential programs, but that jindal and palin's complaints about them have simply propagated the image of the conservatives as being backwards and opposed to scientific progress?

and what, dear sir, is your suggestion for fixing the current economic crisis? hint: you are not allowed to use the words "tax cuts" or "socialism" in your answer, as we tried tax cuts for the last eight years and they haven't worked, and it's quite obvious the right wing has no idea what the word "Socialism" means.

so yes, let's hear your solution, please, mr. suddenly-fiscally-responsible. the conservatives have left a truly disgusting mess for the country and i have to be honest, i'm surprised that cons are not ashamed to show their faces in public.


Yeah, why would we want to know when a volcano's going to blow?  You know where they didn't have any earmarks for volcano research?  Pompeii.  And it never did them any harm!

BTW, the pollution from industrial pig farms is a serious problem.  There are areas in states such as North Carolina and Iowa where they have these giant piggeries where the water table is tainted from the lagoons of liquified waste and the stench in the air is unbearable enough to lower property values.  So there you go.
http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/07/oink.gif

what percentage of this bill is "pork", exactly? and how do you define pork? are you concerned that several of the complaints about so-called "pork" -- jindal's prespammersite rejection of "volcano research," as if we're not supposed to prevent natural disasters, sarah palin's ridiculing of "fruit fly research" when fruit fly research is the touchstone of modern genetics -- have turned out to not only be valuable and essential programs, but that jindal and palin's complaints about them have simply propagated the image of the conservatives as being backwards and opposed to scientific progress?

and what, dear sir, is your suggestion for fixing the current economic crisis? hint: you are not allowed to use the words "tax cuts" or "socialism" in your answer, as we tried tax cuts for the last eight years and they haven't worked, and it's quite obvious the right wing has no idea what the word "Socialism" means.

so yes, let's hear your solution, please, mr. suddenly-fiscally-responsible. the conservatives have left a truly disgusting mess for the country and i have to be honest, i'm surprised that cons are not ashamed to show their faces in public.
Tia, I don;t know the percentage of earmarks on this bill but I;m just saying can we cut out the pork barrel projects already I mean do removing tatoo's from gang members and canoe rides belong on this bill? I don;t think so. Those 2 things are my definition of pork. The pig odor research should be paid for by the state of Iowa and not from taxpayers from other states.

I don;t have all the answers for the recession but like I said can they stop spending money on pork?

BTW, I think Volcano research is ok but fruit fly reseacrch? I don;t like that one too much.

As for the conservatives making a mess of our economy are you blaming every Republican for this mess that we have now? I would blame George W. Bush but Barney Frank knew about the housing bubble and did nothing. The housing bubble caused this whole mess we are in now.

Tia, I don;t know the percentage of earmarks on this bill but I;m just saying can we cut out the pork barrel projects already I mean do removing tatoo's from gang members and canoe rides belong on this bill? I don;t think so. Those 2 things are my definition of pork. The pig odor research should be paid for by the state of Iowa and not from taxpayers from other states.

I don;t have all the answers for the recession but like I said can they stop spending money on pork?

BTW, I think Volcano research is ok but fruit fly reseacrch? I don;t like that one too much.

As for the conservatives making a mess of our economy are you blaming every Republican for this mess that we have now? I would blame George W. Bush but Barney Frank knew about the housing bubble and did nothing. The housing bubble caused this whole mess we are in now.
fruit fly research is the basic component of genetics. i believe the tattoos thing is part of a larger program to reintegrate ex-felons into society. and the so-called "pork" makes up something between 2 and 4 percent of the bill. most of it comes out of congress, not the executive, and most actually goes to republican districts.

the housing bubble triggered the economic meltdown but the actual phenomenon is much more complicated than that. why were housing prices so inflated in the first place? do you see where speculation in real estate was part and parcel of speculation in energy, day trading, etc.? a more general culture of impunity was created in the financial sector, and housing was just a symptom of that. i understand that dems and repubs both did participate in creating this mess, and i don't want to waste money on useless projects any more than you do, but it concerns me that this "porkulus" bromide seems to be popular among folks like michelle malkin and limbaugh, who i don't see as having any real alternative answers.

I'm pretty sure that the government has been spending on projects like this for years and that they when you add them all up together in reality add up to a very insignificant amount when compared to the overall budget. You could get rid of all the earmarks and the deficit would still be over a trillion anyway. The real pork is in the defense contracts, there's no reason this country needs to spend more than half of the entire rest of the world combined in military spending, take some of that money and put it into universal health care.

  There are some who oppose the spending bill because it only serves to secure power for the Left, not save the economy.  But so far Obama's announced programs haven't been nearly as profligate as the past eight years have been and have, at least, the potential of doing something of more benefit than blowing holes in Iraq and not filling them in, to the enrichment of various Dubai bank accounts...

  I happen to think that you need to spend money to make money, and an economic downturn does not mean the country should stop spending money.  I believe that had McCain won, and we simply stopped spending money as he said he would, there would be no way out of the crisis.  He wasn't talking about research and development, or government grants for the sciences (Palin even spent a great deal of time bashing the sciences as useless, as Tia pointed out), so there really is no long-term future for a government that doesn't invest in its country...

 

On the one hand, there are some science projects involved in this bill that, on a surface level, seem useless but actually serve important purposes for research.  Rush Limbaugh and others like him enjoy exploiting the idiocy of the average person by only looking at the surface level and condemning this stuff as pork.

On the other hand, some of this stuff really is pork.

Just seen this joke:

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House.

One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Minnesota.

All three go with a White House official to examine the fence. The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil.

"Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900 -- $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me."

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me."

The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700."

The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?"

The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1,000 for me, $1,000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence."

"Done!" replies the government official.

And that, my friends, is how the new stimulus plan will work.

Just seen this joke:

Three contractors are bidding to fix a broken fence at the White House.

One is from Chicago, another is from Tennessee, and the third is from Minnesota.

All three go with a White House official to examine the fence. The Minnesota contractor takes out a tape measure and does some measuring, then works some figures with a pencil.

"Well," he says, "I figure the job will run about $900 -- $400 for materials, $400 for my crew and $100 profit for me."

The Tennessee contractor also does some measuring and figuring, then says, "I can do this job for $700: $300 for materials, $300 for my crew and $100 profit for me."

The Chicago contractor doesn't measure or figure, but leans over to the White House official and whispers, "$2,700."

The official, incredulous, says, "You didn't even measure like the other guys! How did you come up with such a high figure?"

The Chicago contractor whispers back, "$1,000 for me, $1,000 for you, and we hire the guy from Tennessee to fix the fence."

"Done!" replies the government official.

And that, my friends, is how the new stimulus plan will work.


...and then they never fix the fence and the joke starts all over again!

http://www.inthe00s.com/smile/15/toothy9.gif

Latest "joke" from this side of the pond (that's "joke" as in policy): I don't know if you're aware of Gordon Brown's favourite off-balance-sheet accounting wheeze, the Private Finance Initiative, or PFI.. the idea is that private companies can put up the money for public projects, such as new prisons, schools or hospitals, then run them for a few decades paid for by the taxpayer.

Partly it's for accounting purposes - a buy-now-pay-later sort of scheme.  In theory, the private sector put up the money and took the risk, so could make substantial profits if everything went well.  In practise, the projects were usually too important to allow them to fail, so if additional funds were needed, we (the taxpayers) ended up paying more.

So the private sector puts up the money, we take the risk, they take the profit.

In these credit-crunched times, however, there isn't the private sector finance available.. so you'd think that PFI projects wouldn't happen.  But.... Gordon has announced that public funds will be available to lend to private companies so they can get PFI work.

In other words, the public sector's putting up the money, taking the risk.. and the companies involved still get their humungous profits.  It's a sweet life if you're in the right place.

Latest "joke" from this side of the pond (that's "joke" as in policy): I don't know if you're aware of Gordon Brown's favourite off-balance-sheet accounting wheeze, the Private Finance Initiative, or PFI.. the idea is that private companies can put up the money for public projects, such as new prisons, schools or hospitals, then run them for a few decades paid for by the taxpayer.

Partly it's for accounting purposes - a buy-now-pay-later sort of scheme.  In theory, the private sector put up the money and took the risk, so could make substantial profits if everything went well.  In practise, the projects were usually too important to allow them to fail, so if additional funds were needed, we (the taxpayers) ended up paying more.

So the private sector puts up the money, we take the risk, they take the profit.

In these credit-crunched times, however, there isn't the private sector finance available.. so you'd think that PFI projects wouldn't happen.  But.... Gordon has announced that public funds will be available to lend to private companies so they can get PFI work.

In other words, the public sector's putting up the money, taking the risk.. and the companies involved still get their humungous profits.  It's a sweet life if you're in the right place.


Yeah, that's the ticket!  PM Brown's a fast learner!  Socialize the risk, privatize the profit!  We've been following that scheme in the U.S. in 25 years and our economy couldn't be better!
::)

Yeah, that's the ticket!  PM Brown's a fast learner!  Socialize the risk, privatize the profit!  We've been following that scheme in the U.S. in 25 years and our economy couldn't be better!
::)


It's called "socialism for the rich".  A scheme invented by Ronny Raygun and sold to us as "trickle down" theory, which means we get "trickled" on.

I'm pretty sure that the government has been spending on projects like this for years and that they when you add them all up together in reality add up to a very insignificant amount when compared to the overall budget. You could get rid of all the earmarks and the deficit would still be over a trillion anyway. The real pork is in the defense contracts, there's no reason this country needs to spend more than half of the entire rest of the world combined in military spending, take some of that money and put it into universal health care.
The Pork Barrel Spending started in 1991 when George W. Bush was president and continued and got worse in Bill Clinton's and George W. Bush's 2 presidenial terms each. Now Obama just called for earmark reform today right after he signed this 410 billion dollar spending bill with 8500 earmarks on it. He could have just vetoed the bill and got the earmarks out of it.

i think with the economy being what it is, a veto would just scare the sheesh out of everybody and probably spark another run on the dow.

earmark fight is just gonna have to wait, i'm guessing.

   
   I happen to think that you need to spend money to make money, and an economic downturn does not mean the country should stop spending money.  I believe that had McCain won, and we simply stopped spending money as he said he would, there would be no way out of the crisis.  He wasn't talking about research and development, or government grants for the sciences (Palin even spent a great deal of time bashing the sciences as useless, as Tia pointed out), so there really is no long-term future for a government that doesn't invest in its country...

   
I agree Congress and the President are entitled to have a budget even if they are printing money that they don;t have. I'm with you just because we are in an ecomomic doesn;t mean government should stop spending money but the 8500 earmarks in this bill should not have been allowed. I mean government should have shown that they can go on a spending diet too like people are across the country because of the economic downturn in not allowing pork in this bill put they didn;t do that.

I am proud of Obama however for bring standup after he signed the bill which 8500 earmarks and saying we need earmark earform from here on out. :)