PatsFanInVa

Sounds like you guys have something like a useful thought buried in the usual diatribe here:

don't look at whether guys are in private jets. We've pretty much established that a lot of these guys are in them.

Rather, examine "pork", who supports it, how much of it there is, how much of it comes back to the candidate in question, and what's bought with that money.

Farmers. Lawyers. Doctors. Your town. The next town over. Halliburton. Northrup Grumman. General Electric. General Dynamic. Pork is everywhere, I tell you, everywhere!

Add it all up, and what does it tell you? Basically that "pork" consists of contracting. In government, contracting is supposed to be done through competition, for the most part, unless there is a good reason to do it otherwise (i.e., give it to your friends.) Look for sole-source contracts if you want to find the hard-core pork.

Now, if you use "pork" to mean any program with which you disagree, what you are really referring to is "programs with which I disagree." If you use "pork" to mean any program that is not the primary focus of a bill, you mean "riders" or sometimes "poison pills." These species of "pork" can not be eliminated without eliminating the democratic process as we know it. If my district wants the new overpass, by golly, and your district wants a day-care center, by jingo, and neither of us gets re-elected unless we perform, we trade a horse or two, and somewhere in a transportation bill there's "pork" about a day care center. If only your district and my district benefit from this system, it is inherently evil; but if there are 435 districts to account for, it is clumsy but functional.

The good news is that the first species of "pork," the one in which you just give contracts to your cronies, is easy to ferret out and far from damaging the underlying system, it strengthens it.

The second species of "pork" -- that you will disagree with some programs -- is an outgrowth of representative democracy, as is the third. The second is only rectified by making you a dictator, which has the negative impact of disenfranchising some hundreds of millions of people. The third could be rectified by a sweeping overhaul of the way congress does business. Before such a grand undertaking, I would do a good deal of research about whether this type of "pork" evens out over the long haul; whether new rules can effectively eliminate such "pork," how one could get the votes to do it; and, most importantly, what long-term impact we could expect from the elimination of this kind of "pork."

I don't think the problem with America is that too much is accomplished in the appropriations process. Rather, I think that crooked politicians, starting from the top, have too much opportunity to bypass acquisition standards that should be applied to the largest expenditures, just as they are applied to smaller ones.

Finally: if we are concerned about fiscal responsibility, the number 1 thing we can do to remedy red ink is simple -

Stop making spurious, off-the-cuff, adventurous, and ill-thought-out military expenditures.

Our Iraqi excursion was a case in point. The war and aftermath were planned to be a three-month exercise. It's been "pay as you go" ever since. At some point you pull the plug.

And who do you blame? The guy who pulls the plug, or the guy who substitutes hoping ("they'll greet us as liberators,") for planning ("Um, what if they don't?")

PFnV

Real World

I see, Iraq is the problem with government, always has been, always will be. Even before Iraq was, well, Iraq, it was the problem with fiscal government.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

PatsFanInVa

Nope, just a rant at the end of a definitional argument.

The point is, if everybody is railing against "pork," what the hell is pork? Anything you don't like? Spending in the town next door, instead of your town? Spending in another region, instead of yours? All spending? Corrupt spending?

See, I don't mind a new overpass in Montana if we need a bridge in DC. People line up for and against any project. If you're against, you call it "pork."

Unless we define it, "pork" is just money the other guy wants to spend. I think that's how it's commonly used in political "discourse." I also think it's the usual bullcrap demagogery.

To me, when you sole source a contract in the billions of dollars, to a company the administration has demonstrable ties to...? That's pork.

PFnV

Fogbuster

Fwiw, I agree. Demagoguery and corruption are killers of hope and the American dream.


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PatsFanInVa

Don't take this the wrong way - I am not trying to be elitist or unpatriotic - but...

The trouble with the American Dream, is that to have a dream, you have to be asleep... this is fine as long as people aren't cynically using the "unconsciousness" of the dreamers.

Because after all, some dreams come true, either all at once for individuals, or a little bit at a time. But people will -- or at least, should -- lose faith that that will happen, when the ones that don't profit from it "wake up" to what the ones who do profit, are doing to them.

PFnV

Real World

So therefore, so long as there is a single person who wants said pork project, it's not really pork. I see. $100,000 gazebo in Lowell isn't pork, because some loony asked for it. The bridge to nowhere wasn't pork, because the congressman wanted it (even though the people their didn't). $125 million for Spinach farmers is cool, cuz those farmers wanted it. In Detroit, Ipod's for students, sure, the kids want them. Someone dial the White House, or Capital Hill, and tell them I want a blonde, two brunettes (Federica Ridolfi would be nice), and Shaq's house in Miami (it is for sale). After all, I want it, so it wouldn't be pork. With them chics, I'd certainly be porking though.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

Fogbuster

Well, that's an original interpretation of what the American "dream" entails!! I'll give you an 8 out of 10 for innovation.

But it's not what I see in the "American Dream", nor do I think most would see it that way, either.

Actually, the "American Dream" of self-sufficiency based on free and equal opportunity to carve out a good life in a virgin land is what all people should have. "All people" as in everyone in the world, no matter where they live, be it in America or elsewhere. The "dream" of having such freedom of pursuit and expression is what I believe drives the human spirit to do great and beautiful things. Whether it's in discovering new cures for disease, developing new industries that harmonize with nature, providing good education at a reasonable cost, or just in providing a healthy emotional/mental/physical environment -- all these are what America has allowed more than any other society in history.

Yet, we know all too well how this has been degraded in recent decades. So much so that now Asia is rising up faster than America is moving forward. We've become weighted down with distractions born from wasting our moral/spiritual capital. We need to reverse this trend immediately.


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