Federal pork for Kentucky slashed?
A Wall Street Journal Editorial:
We'll soon find out if the loss of both houses of Congress was enough of a shock for Republicans to check into the Hazelton rehab center for spending addicts. GOP Doctors, er, Senators Jim DeMint (South Carolina) and Tom Coburn (Oklahoma) have been staging an intervention so their colleagues don't risk another overdose before they ride off into the minority.The drama played out on the Senate floor recently as the pair blocked GOP Appropriators from passing spending bills for Fiscal Year 2007 unless they stripped out special-interest "earmarks." You could almost feel the withdrawal shakes coming on, as the Members contemplated a year without pork.
The agriculture bill, for example, includes a new $4.9 billion "emergency" handout for farmers, courtesy of North Dakota Democrat Kent Conrad. Millions more would have been directed to Alaskan salmon research, Montana sheep, New York geese and animal-waste management in Kentucky. The 10 remaining Senate spending bills (and nine in the House) are estimated to contain some 12,000 earmarks. If GOP leaders couldn't pass these bills individually, the scheme was to wrap them all into one giant "omnibus" bill whose innards no one would ever be able to inspect.
