I’m not sure if you have noticed yet or not, but I have a case of the red-ass with our current Federal Income Tax process. I make more money every year only to bring home roughly the same amount. I had $1800 taken out of my check last month. That is a mortgage and a new car payment in most areas. While I do believe in paying my fair share and I would never bitch about improving roads, feeding the hungry, education, defense, caring for retirees, ect… but, I am bent about the way my money is currently being spent and the proportion of the total bill that I’m paying. While I’m not happy with out current president, it is hard to blame our tax problem on his administration solely. Congressional pork projects alone are sucking the well dry.

The congressional spending spree of the past few years is well-documented, and this year promises to be no different. Over the last four years, federal spending has increased from $16,000 per household to $20,000 per household, the highest level since World War II. The Medicare and energy bills, although experiencing different fates, share one common denominator: little reform at huge cost, while loaded with special-interest spending. Congress’s continued fiscal irresponsibility is clearly exhibited in the thousands of pork projects contained in the fiscal year 2004 omnibus spending bill. Congress is set to bust its own budget cap in order to protect pork projects such as the Please Touch Museum and Trout Genome Mapping.

Historically, Congress funded grant programs and then asked federal agencies, governors, and mayors to competitively award the grants to the most capable applicants. But over the past few years, Congress has aggressively begun bypassing these agencies, governors, and mayors and selecting the grant recipients themselves, such as Police Athletic League and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (these projects selected by Congress instead of agencies are called earmarks, or pork projects). Grant seekers can no longer simply submit a persuasive grant proposal to an unbiased agency. Now, they must master the Washington influence game and hire a lobbyist to pursue their interest.

Predictably, an entire lobbying industry has emerged to secure pork projects for those willing to pay for their services. Organizations and local governments seeking federal money can choose between dozens of powerful lobbying firms who effectively trade campaign contributions for earmarks. Auctioning pork projects to the highest bidder reduces the number of merit-based grants for distribution by federal agencies, governors and mayors. These shortages induce Congress to expand these programs – and then earmark those new funds as well. Consequently, the number of pork projects skyrocketed from under 2,000 five years ago to 9,362 in the 2003 budget. Total spending on pork projects has correspondingly increased to over $23 billion.
This trend continues in the fiscal year (FY) 2004 appropriations bills, which include approximately 10,000 earmarks. The FY 2004 omnibus appropriations bill (HR 2673), which combines the seven bills that have not yet been enacted, includes the following pork projects (there are many more that I haven’t listed!):

Amount Pork Project Recipient
$725,000 Please Touch Museum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
$200,000 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, Cleveland, Ohio
$1,800,000 2003 Women’s World Cup Tournament
$6,000,000 Police Athletic League
$250,000 Call Me Mister program, Clemson University
$500,000 New England Amer-I-Can Program
$150,000 Rock School, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
$16,000 National Distance Running Hall of Fame, Utica, New York
$225,000 Hawaii statehood celebration
$325,000 Construction of a swimming pool in Salinas, California
$100,000 History competition during National History Day in Iowa
$175,000 Therapeutic Horse man ship center, Hoffman Homes for Youth, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
$315,000 Formosan Subterranean Termite research
$100,000 Public service recognition week
$50,000 Father Maloney’s Boy’s Haven, Louisville, Kentucky
$75,000 Vintage Radio Programs and Jazz Museum, East Stroudsburg University
$100,000 Kids Rock Free educational program, Fender Museum of the Arts Foundation, Corona, California**
$100,000 Renovation of the historic Coca-Cola building in Macon, Georgia
$100,000 Construction of an intergenerational daycare center in San Fernando Valley, California
$372,000 B&O Railroad Museum emergency restoration, Baltimore, Maryland
$75,000 Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, Washington, DC
$225,000 Construction of Blue-Gray Civil War Theme Park, Kentucky
$75,000 North Pole Transit System JARC Program, Alaska
$250,000 Feasibility study of establishing Suffolk (Virginia) Workforce Development Center
$350,000 Construction for a folk cultural center in Pinellas County, Florida
$400,000 Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky
$90,000 Olive fruitfly research
$150,000 Traffic light, Briarcliff Manor Union Free School District, New York
$100,000 People for People, Inc., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
$100,000 Amphitheater construction, North Star Productions, Inc., Bracken County, Kentucky
$2,000,000 First Tee program
$150,000 Regional Youth Baseball Complex Lancaster, California
$100,000 John Singelton Mosby Museum Foundation in Warrenton, Virginia
$180,000 Seafood waste research, Fairbanks, Alaska
$400,000 Walla Walla Public Schools, Walla Walla, Washington
$900,000 Kincaid Park Trail Connection, Alaska
$20,000 Southern Star Development Corporation, Louisville, Kentucky
$85,000 Comprehensive Transportation Plan for Lewisburg, West Virginia
$100,000 Norman Hall project, University of Florida
$225,000 Museum of Aviation Foundation Inc, Warner Robins, Georgia
$250,000 Lou Frey Institute of Politics, University of Central Florida
$270,000 Sustainable olive production
$5,000,000 Kennedy Center Potomac River Pedestrian and Bike Path
$100,000 National Civil War Museum, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
$200,000 Cedar glades research
$250,000 Theater construction, Studio for the Arts, Pocahontas, Arkansas
$2,000,000 Intermodal Transload Facility, Quincy, Washington
$110,000 Construction of a dental clinic in Bassfield, Mississippi
$220,000 New Mexico Retail Association, Albuquerque, New Mexico
$400,000 Davenport Music History Museum, Davenport, Iowa
$3,000,000 US 12 Widening, Wallula Junction to Walla Walla, Washington
$25,000 Alex Haley House Museum, Henning, Tennessee
$225,000 Rialto Square Theater, Joliet, Illinois
$5,000,000 Project SOCRATES
$90,000 Rabbit Run Community Arts Association, Madison, Ohio
$150,000 Renovation off Farmers market, Dallas, Texas*
$200,000 Merit School of Music’s after school program
$200,000 Advanced Traffic Analysis Center, North Dakota
$250,000 Nevada Test Site Oral History Project
$400,000 National Center for American Revolution, Wayne, Pennsylvania
$1,000,000 Hal Rogers Parkway, Kentucky
$1,000,000 Ship Creek Improvements, Alaska
$2,000,000 I-SAFE America
$50,000 National Canal Museum, Easton, Pennsylvania
$100,000 Mystic Seaport, the Museum of America and the Sea
$200,000 Renovation of First National Bank Building, Greenfield, Massachusetts
$250,000 Martha’s Village and Kitchen, Indio, California
$270,000 Potato storage
$1,000,000 Transylvania Community Hospital, Brevard, North Carolina
$6,000,000 Treasure Island Bridge
$80,000 Hot Springs Bike Trail, Arkansas*
$90,000 Karnal bunt research, Manhattan, Kansas
$175,000 Wichita Art Museum, Wichita, Kansas
$210,000 O. Winston Link Museum, Roanoke, Virginia
$250,000 James S. Taylor Memorial Home, Louisville, Kentucky
$250,000 Museum of Broadcast Communications, Chicago, Illinois
$500,000 Traffic Signal Replacement Program, New Rochelle, New York
$2,000,000 Parents Anonymous
$100,000 "Servicing our Youth"
$275,000 Refurbishment of the Coach George E. Ford Center, Powder Springs, Georgia
$150,000 Piper’s Opera House Programs, Inc., Virginia City, Nevada
$270,000 U.S. Vegetable Lab
$1,250,000 US-2, Dover Bridge, Bonner County, Idaho
$25,000 Capitol Area Boy Scouts
$113,000 Healing Place, Louisville, Kentucky
$500,000 Jim Thorpe Bridge Renovation Project, Pennsylvania
$600,000 Web Wise Kids
$800,000 Mammoth Lakes Bus Purchase, California*
$100,000 Renovate the Jamestown (Ohio) Opera House
$400,000 Ed Roberts Campus transit center, California
$750,000 The Doe Fund’s Ready, Willing & Able program
$160,000 Grapevine Bus Purchase, Texas
$500,000 Round Rock Higher Education Center, Southwest Texas State University
$1,400,000 Translational Genomics Research Institute, Phoenix, Arizona
$25,000 Transylvania County, North Carolina, Sheriff’s Citizens Observer Patrol and Education Team
$200,000 Chaldean Community Culture Center, West Bloomfield, Michigan
$300,000 Milwaukee Summer Stars
$450,000 Johnny Appleseed Heritage Center, Inc., Ashland County, Ohio
$750,000 Intelligent Transportation Systems, Wichita Transit Authority
$1,500,000 Operation Streetsweeper
$125,000 Planning for new route over Cape Fear River, North Carolina
$300,000 Omnitrans—Paratransit Vehicles, California*
$500,000 Bike path, St. Petersburg, Florida
$1,000,000 WestStart Vehicular Flywheel Project, Washington
$15,000 Pines of Peace, Inc., Ontario, New York
$75,000 U.S. Dream Academy, Inc., Columbia, Maryland
$200,000 Oneont Bus Replacement, New York
$450,000 Trout Genome Mapping
$500,000 LOVE Social Services, Fairbanks, Alaska
$750,000 Broken Bow rail spur, Oklahoma
$2,000,000 Tools for Tolerance program, California
$150,000 National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation
$1,000,000 DelTrac Statewide Integration, Delaware

The list is endless. And while Congress is buying frills with taxpayer dollars, local school districts are laying off teachers and state governments are cutting people off Medicaid. Many of the congressional projects are defensible on their merits. What's not defensible is funding them with special federal grants. That creates an inequity from community to community, state to state. If the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is worthy of a federal grant, why not the Motown Museum? If Arkansas merits a taxpayer-funded bike trail, why not Michigan? If the kids in Salinas should get a swimming pool paid for by all American taxpayers, why not the kids in Detroit? The more fair system -- in years when the national treasury can afford it -- would be to make proportional grants directly to states, and allow governors and lawmakers to decide which projects are worthy of support. But that would keep members of Congress from buying votes with the direct grants.

The American people have been told they are in a perilous period, and the need for sacrifice is great. Taxpayers have been asked to pay for a broad range of measures to make the nation more secure. They've also been handed a bill of $87 billion to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. Is it too much to ask of Congress and the president to behave in a manner that reflects the gravity of the times? Could they not drop the greedy, get-mine-first attitude and instead act for once in the national interest? Squandering $23 billion on pork is appalling. It's an affront to taxpayers who are struggling to balance household budgets in a still shaky economy. Congress can begin a new era of fiscal restraint by scrubbing the omnibus bill clean of pork projects, and reducing wasteful spending. Overwhelmed taxpayers deserve nothing less.