Redstate

All the more reason I am happy to see Dr. Coburn (R-OK) entering the Senate in January.  He can tag team with McCain and some fiscally responsible Democrats to keep the heat on profligate Republicans who are trying to repeat the mistakes of 4 decades of Democratic rule.  Do these legislators realize that the entire 1994 Republican revolution was based on ending this culture of pork?  Let me recommend Dr. Coburn's book, "Breach of Trust," for its great history of the 1994-2000 era of Republican successes and failures at limiting government.

Are migratory and therefore fall under the Commerce Clause, making federal expenditures entirely appropriate.

The Hill notices that fiscal conservatives and centrists are teaming up:

A top priority is to slow spending growth; many conservatives bit their tongues and accepted what they would otherwise reject as excessive fiscal laxity to help party unity and reelect President Bush.

The party's fiscal record since President Bush moved into the White House has frustrated and embarrassed conservative and socially liberal House Republicans alike. Federal spending has jumped 23 percent in the past three years, and discretionary spending, which Congress appropriates in annual and emergency bills, is up 39 percent, according to the conservative Heritage Foundation.

There is no bigger pork. When conservatives are ready to have an actual discussion about the corruption involved with giving no-bid contracts to Halliburton and shoving taxpayer's money down that dark hole, then maybe you can talk about being fiscally conservative have having smaller government. Until then, leave the birds alone.

We should discuss this with Bill Clinton, who did the same thing with the same company in Kosovo.  

I am stunned.

Though I can cut short your investigation of Kosovo and Bosnia. The fact is Halliburton is a company with unique qualifications. Its subsidiary, KBR, has been doing base operations for the US military for decades. It did all support work during the Vietnam war. Fact is, there is not a single other company in the world that has the knowledge, experience, and expertise of KBR.

I suppose we could always hire a company at random and trust them to learn on the job, but from a customer standpoint that is a suboptimal arrangement.

it's gonna be, then I want my share.

As I re-read my "blah blah" post, I can see how it might have been misunderstood as to the point I was making.  I was suggesting that jefe's comments were just Demo talking points.

(Unless you were really replying to jefe.  If so, never mind me.)

I recognized the doofus talking points. They didn't mean much before November 3 and they mean even less now.

No I was impressed that someone who leans (heavily) left/Dem wasn't a kneejerk amen corner when the name "Halliburton" is mentioned.

How do you stop pork barrel spending? Can the congress cut it off altogether? Is there any way of doing this? I'm interested, if anyone knows how this might be accomplished.

Some suggestions:

• Balanced budget amendment.
• A realization among the voters that we don't (shouldn't) send our reps to Washington primarily to pull money from everyone else.  Less from Washington, do more locally.  Can't afford it locally?  Try privately.  (Read: more conservative values among the populace.)
• More tax cuts.  Although two major tax cuts have in fact increased federal revenues (JFK's and Reagan's), at some point you'd hit the law of diminishing returns.  If there's enough money for animal poop research and shrimp, then there's too much floating around there.  (Relates back to aforementioned amendment.)  I remember when MoveOn was griping about the $87 billion for the Iraq war and how many schools it would build.  Where are they now, or are shrimp more important than a stable democracy in the Middle East?

I'm sure there are more ways.  The main thing is that if it's not painful to push pork, it'll never stop.  

Talk amongst yourselves.

It might make it legal, but it definitely doesn't make it appropriate.

Colorado has a system that should be used as an example.  Take the amount we are spending this year (roughly $2 trillion) and each year add inflation + population growth.  That is the new limit for spending.  Put it in the Constitution and only allow it to be breeched when Congress declares war AND 3/4ths of both houses agree.  Then everytime someone wants to add a program, they have to end a different one.  This forces actual trade-offs to be made.

Tax-cuts should have worked, but deficits seem not to scare people enough to cut spending (they often just re-raise taxes).  By capping spending, we can still run surpluses and deficits due to different levels of taxation and spending.  Deficits are useful and necessary during recessions (which is why a balanced budget amendment would be like tying our hands behind our backs during a swordfight).

Cap spending.  It's the problem.  That's the answer.

Starving the beast is the only real option.

A balanced budget amendment is never going to pass. Besides it being a bad idea there is no constituency for it.

Voters like pork. So long as it is their pork. How to you think Robert Byrd has survived?

To be clear MoveOn.org is not against federal spending they are just against spending it to protect us.

I understand both yours and Doverspa's rejection of the idea of a Balanced Budge amendment. I do like the idea of a spending cap, which as is noted is better than a balanced budget, since a balanced budget could be a huge budget financed on the backs of the taxpayer (or their progeny).

I'm also very aware of MoveOn.org's double-standard. Just enjoyed the opportunity to point it out. :)

There's a funny line about blackbirds in the midwest. They're actually covered by the Migratory Bird Act, which prohibits harming them unless they are about to depredate.

As sunflower farmers say, "I've never seen a blackbird that isn't about to depredate."

The red wing and tri-color blackbirds are very pretty. It's a shame they have to die.

In all seriousness, black birds cause tremendous damage, and APPHIS has been in the mangement business for years. So this isn't new.

Not that I endorse it.

Here's the entire wildlife management provision from the conference report:

The conference agreement continues funding for the following projects: $300,000 for beaver management in North Carolina; $250,000 for crop and aquaculture losses in southwest Missouri; $625,000 for game bird predation work with the University of Georgia; $100,000 for predation wildlife services in western Virginia; $120,000 for blackbird control in Louisiana; $1,300,000 for predator control programs in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming; $1,000,000 for wildlife services in Texas; $150,000 for beaver management and damage in Wisconsin; $515,000 for brown tree snake management in Guam; $310,000 for Hawaii and Guam operations; $300,000 for sandhill cranes in Idaho; $50,000 for control of feral hogs in Missouri; $1,000,000 for cormorant control in New York; $150,000 for cormorant control in Michigan; $100,000 for cormorant control in the Lake Champlain basin; $750,000 for wildlife service operations with the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish, and Parks to meet the growing demands of controlling predatory, nuisance, and diseased animals; $550,000 for the management of beavers in Mississippi; $335,000 to continue control measures for minimizing blackbird damage to sunflowers in North Dakota and $33,000 for those purposes in South Dakota; $120,000 for blackbird management efforts in Louisiana; $174,000 for Kansas blackbird control; $247,000 for the Jack Berryman Institute, Utah; $199,000 for beaver control in Kentucky; $325,000 for Delta states operations; $199,000 for geese control in New York; $249,000 for the New Hampshire State operations; and $474,000 for the Nevada Division of Wildlife. The conferees do not provide $50,000 for the Cooperative Livestock Protection Program in Pennsylvania as proposed by the Senate.

Feral hogs!

I don't think any of these options are very viable. A spending cap would be nice, but will anyone get behind a constitutional amendment to that effect? I don't think there are enough fiscal conservatives to get that kind of supermajority.

PRESIDENTIAL LINE ITEM VETO!!!!!

Works wonders if used apprpriately.

since they're the friggin truth. god you people are such freaks

is that they are something made up. The fact the Halliburton is has been bilking US taxpayers is not made up. Thus NOT a talking point. Go back to political kindergarten.

...sounds pretty good to me in hopes of weeding out "pork" slowly.  Only problem is that once you cap spending, politicians will always want to spend up to the cap...regardless of the need to spend or not spend.

The line item veto by the President sounds inviting also as a means to get rid of "pork"...but I wonder if this would make it too easy for a President to push his political agenda upon the American people (imagine a liberal President making lots of line-item vetoes against conservative items in a budget).  This may give the President too much power.

Probably the best check against future "pork" is to use the power of the internet or some kind of well respected "watch dog" group to expose the big "porkers" in Congress and then let that become a debate issue to face when running for re-election.

Any other thoughts/comments on this important issue would be appreciated.