Paying For Katrina: Get The Pork Out Of Our Federal Budget
Our U.S. House and Senate have a major opportunity to help pay for Hurricane Katrina via the removal of many “pork” projects from our federal budget.
To date it doesn’t look like this excellent idea is catching on. One of our bloggers sent a website that details what each Representative and Senator has committed to reducing the pork from the budget.
See what is happening on “pork removal” at: http://truthlaidbear.com/porkbusters.php
As you will see, the commitments are very disappointing.
Please write to your Congressman/Senator and encourage them to get busy on getting the pork out of the federal budget.
posted by Blog Master @ 11:21 AM
25 Comments:
You will need to scroll down to "Congressional Contact Status" on the Truthlaidbear" website to get to the list. Also, I had to try a couple of times to get the page to download.
The efforts of our congress in removing pork from the budget, so far, is pathetic!
It's a shame that more members of congress aren't doing something about this. I have written to Stearns, as have some others.
Don't ever expect to ehar from stearns unless you can help in his relection. he sure is not interested in pork -- one of the few things he has ever done for ocala was money to cfcc to help pay his wife's salary. funny the star blunder has never written about this -- shows how a woman can climb up the ladder when her husband is a congressman.
From watching TV, I don't get the feeling that any of our elected officials in Washington are taking the pork reduction possibilities very seriously. More debt seems to be the easy way out.
What local pork is there and what local pork are we going to omit?
I sent something to Nelson on this topic over three weeks ago. No response.
Charles . . . Marion County gets no real "pork" from Washington -- just the road money etc that everyone else gets. CFCC did get $500,000 last year to help pay for some program, and we got $200,000 to study Ft. King, but we get very little from state or federal govts . . . I wrote Cliff Stearns about the idea of repealing the giant giveaway in the last appropriations bill three weeks ago, and have heard nothing yet Eventually, I will hear that he is working hard to reduce spending but he voted for the appropriations bill that spent $250,000,000 or so for the bridge to no where in Alaska . . . that would be a start.
--pwf
PWF, no real pork?
Doesn't every journey of a thousand miles begins with one step?
Too bad we don't have a few more Randy Harris types in Congress. They would identify the pork in the federal budget. Say what you want about Harris, he understands the ins and outs of government budgets.
Do you folks remember the Packard automobile? Well we have an Ohio congressman, Tim Ryan (D), who has a pork project to spend over $3 million to establish a Packard Museum in Warren, Ohio. This is the kind of stuff that needs to be reconsidered in light of the hurricane situation. Want to bet whether this stays in the budget?
The real problem with all these pork projects is that we have a President who doesn’t have the balls to use his “rescission” power to get this stuff out of our federal budget. He is the only President since 1974 who has NEVER issued a rescission request. All he needs to do is send congress a list of the projects he does not wish to spend money on. Congress then votes up or down on whether to accept his proposed cuts.
Past Presidents have saved billions of dollars using this power. Reagan saved the most (over $43 billion) and he didn’t even have a republican congress. Fiscal leadership is what we need!
I can’t stand Nancy Pelosi, but she has issued a challenge to her House of Representative associates that makes sense to me. She has offered to return to the federal government $70 million for highway projects in her San Francisco district to help the victims of Katrina if other House members would also give up their share of highway pork. So far, no one has taken her up on the challenge. Anyone think they will?
Stan . . .
A number of congressmen have little or no pork to send back. I do not know of anything other than $200,000 for Ft. King and a half mil for CFCC that Ocala has gotten that I would consider pork.
Is the federal money that goes to SunTrans pork? I have never supported SunTrans, but if I didn't have bad legs and can't walk the five blocks to the Boulevard, I would ride SunTrans to and from work. Now, I believe it needs to be expanded, and I suspect my "true" conservative friends will scream. But bus service, while a money loser can be a big benefit to citizens.
At $3 a gallon, and 12 miles to the gallon (yeah, I know I can get a "bug" to drive, but I can't get in and out of them) $60 or so a month I would save, and free space for others to drive.
We have waited for ten years to get money to repave Silver Springs Blvd. -- If we asked every state to wait one year for their road work, we would have enough to fund Katrina. Then all of us could get on one of those cruise ships . . .
--pwf
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that President Bush could request an across the board hurricane relief rescission of 2% of federal agency spending. This would save about $75 billion over the next four years. That’s a savings of about two cents per dollar budgeted. This seems reasonable to me. I have reduced my own spending from time to time by more than that.
I like what the Wall Street Journal says about reducing the budget by 2%. Bet they could do this and the federal government departments would never miss a beat.
Still no reply from Stearns on encouraging him to get the pork out of the budget. Does this surprise anyone?
Pork removal, would entail getting rid of PIGS and that is simply NOT going to happen in the republican or democratic parties.
How will the Pay for Katrina..
They will do it the same way they pay for everything else... Create more debt, and let inflation be the hidden tax that consumes your real welath to pay for it.
AMEN! Preacher.
You got it right.
We need to get our discussions on getting the “Pork” out of the Federal Budget back on track. Here is some news on a positive step out of Washington:
The Club for Growth, with its 32,000 members, plans to score a “YES” vote as a pro-economic growth vote in its annual rating of Congress on Coburn Amendment #2085 to the Senate’s Treasury, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill (HR 3058).
This amendment will transfer funding from the wasteful pork project, the “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska, to the repair and reconstruction of the “Twin Spans” bridge in Louisiana. According to published reports, the Alaskan pork project costs $220 million for a 5.9-mile bridge connecting Gravina Island (population 50) to the Alaskan mainland. The cost of the bridge alone would be enough to buy every island resident his own personal Lear jet.
Now this makes more sense than the “Bridge to Nowhere”! the money may not be out of the budget, but used much more wisely.
Oh, yes, but wait until Sen. Stevens of Alaska and Sen Byrd of West Virginia and Sen. Lott of Mississippi and I could go on -- wait until they get in the smoke filled rooms and start negotiating.
What you want to bet Sen. Stevens keeps his Bridge to no where?
Howe come only Rep. Bill Young of St. Petersburg understands pork in Florida, and he brings home bacon for his district.
--pwf
Well the battle has begun and I bet that little pork is removed from the budget. I read yesterday that there is already disagreement about he infamous "Bridge". It will likely stay in the budget. Very disappointing.
AGK . . .
No surprise to me. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska is powerful, and he and Sen. Byrd of West Virginia control where federal funds go -- after they take far more than their share for their own states.
The bridge will stay, unfortunately, because members of congress, Democrats and Republicans have not the guts to do anything to stop it -- none of them.
Buy whatelse is new.
--pwf
If President Bush wants to get his popularity rating back up, he could do two things. Play hard ball with congress on the federal budget and give the oil companies a hard time and get gasoline prices down. This will get the nation back on his side. Forget the Supreme Court appointment. That is just a philosophy issue that isn’t going to prove anything for years, if at all. Leading the way on the country’s economy is what really counts with voters.
The pork has been saved. It looks like the moderates on both sides have caved in on reducing the budget. They were the last hope to getting some real reductions. Just business as usual in D.C.
I disagree with the comment that the moderates have caved in on the budget. They have rejected the extension of some tax reductions but are continuing to push for budget reductions. I believe they will continue to lead the effort while the far right and left continue to focus on everything but the budget.
Post a Comment
<< Home