"Pork" funds teapot museum, arctic games

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lobbying scandals and a staggering federal budget deficit haven't dampened Congress' appetite for questionable pet projects, as lawmakers will spend a record $29 billion on "pork" this year, a watchdog group said on Wednesday.

At a press conference featuring real pigs, Citizens Against Government Waste highlighted projects it said were especially egregious: $1 million for water-free urinals, $500,000 for a North Carolina teapot museum and $100,000 for a boxing club in Nevada.

Others included $550,000 for the Museum of Glass in Washington state, $250,000 for the National Cattle Congress in Iowa and $500,000 for the Arctic Winter Games in Alaska.
....
The watchdog group said the total number of pork-barrel earmarks in the 2006 budget declined 29 percent to 9,963, but their total cost increased 6 percent to $29 billion.
....
The money is not distributed evenly across the country. While Alaska took home $490 per capita in pork spending, lawmakers from Georgia only wrangled $12 per citizen, according to the group's report.
Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens was for the fifth year in a row responsible for the most amount of pork -- a total of $325 million last year, the group said.

http://go.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=11764224&src=rss/ElectionCoverage

[silverweb]

1. Water-free urinals are not "pork."

With clean water rapidly becoming a commodity more precious than oil, flushing millions of gallons of it into the sewers every day is just plain stupid.

Learn more here.

[Sgent]

3. Anything decied by line items

is considered pork -- its put in there by a congressman rather than through competition with other like projects.

Not to say that the project wouldn't have won in competition for the same funds -- but the process makes it pork.

[silverweb]

4. Well, if you're going to get technical on me...

It's "worthwhile" pork as opposed to "junk" pork. Okay?

:D

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Is the teapot museum in the shape of a dome?

[ToeBot]

5. What's with Ted Stevens?

Do other Senators just get tired of the demented old fuck and let him have his way? Or do they figure that if he is the most egregious abuser of public funds it will deflect attention away from their misdemeanors. The man should be on the losing side of a competency hearing.