It’s that time of year again–time for congress to haggle over the Iraq spending budget. Anyone who has read my blog knows that when it comes to the government and my money, I’m definitely a fiscal conservative. I know I’ve written about the Iraq spending bill in the past, but I can’t seem to find it at the moment. However, I did find this post about our overall spending.
This time around, the leeches are attaching such pet projects as the following:
- $4.2 billion in disaster aid for farmers hurt by drought, floods and other disasters in recent years.
- $6.7 billion in additional federal efforts to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, including housing aid, public infrastructure funding and aid to Gulf Coast fishermen.
- $747 million to ease a shortfall in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health care to children from low-income families.
- $640 million in heating subsidies for the poor and elderly.
- $500 million to combat Western wildfires.
Now, I’m not arguing the relative worth of these projects. Every one of them may very well deserve funding. But they don’t belong as riders on the Iraq spending bill. The whole point of adding them to a “sure thing” bill is that they avoid a lot of the scrutiny they’d otherwise receive. If they can’t pass on their own merits, then they don’t deserve funding. I ask you, what will it take to inject some sanity back into our spending process?
CNN– Pet projects tough to trim from Iraq spending bill
There’s also $100 million in it for the two major political parties’ 2008 presidential conventions.
That kills me too. Lets make pork spending illegal. No more ear marks. Make them just a plain old bare bones bill. It covers what the title says and no more.