2004 Pork

2004 Pork

Quoted from The Federalist, a truly great daily email and site supporting our basic freedoms.

Last week, Federalist No. 03-49 provided a link (http://federalist.com/news/04lotto.asp ) to a few of the 2004 Pork Lotto Winners in the just-passed omnibus spending bill. "The number of pork projects skyrocketed from under 2,000 five years ago to 9,362 in the 2003 budget," noted Heritage Foundation researchers Brian Riedl and Thomas Roe. To wit, here are a few of our favorites. (We searched and searched but could find nothing in our nation's Constitution authorizing any of these expenditures. In fact, that venerable old document's primary author, James Madison, once proclaimed, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents....")

$400,000 Speed Art Museum -- just made a fast buck!
$2,000,000 First Tee program -- next year it will be the second tee!
$270,000 Sustainable olive production -- way to go Popeye!
$725,000 Please Touch Museum -- (insert your own joke here)
$5,000,000 Kennedy Center/Potomac River Pedestrian and Bike Path -- hope there are no narrow bridges!
$400,000 Davenport Music History Museum -- Davenport always comes to mind when we think of Music
$1,800,000 2003 Women’s World Cup Tournament -- something to do with java?
$5,000,000 Project SOCRATES -- next, project Hippocrates
$500,000 Traffic Signal Replacement Program -- with what, crossing guards?
$2,000,000 Parents Anonymous -- aren't there already enough of these?
$600,000 Web Wise Kids -- cuz they aint larnin nuthn in skoo.
$800,000 Mammoth (Lakes) Bus Purchase -- it’s a big one!
$1,400,000 Translational Genomics Research Institute -- what?
$450,000 Johnny Appleseed Heritage Center, Inc. -- bet the pie is good!
$750,000 Intelligent Transportation Systems -- then why do they need my money?
$1,500,000 Operation Streetsweeper -- cleaned up on this one!
$500,000 Bike path, St. Petersburg, Florida -- isn't that special!
$450,000 Trout Genome Mapping -- improved fish sticks!
$500,000 LOVE Social Services -- what the world needs now!
$750,000 Broken Bow rail spur -- that's going to require surgery!
$2,000,000 Tools for Tolerance program, California -- wonder what they will be "tolerating"?

And last, one expenditure that all Federalists can agree on:
$400,000 for the National Center for American Revolution.

Tea Party, anyone?