Think back to the days and weeks following the abrupt collapse of the major bridge in Minnesota.  Big government types started crawling out of the woodwork demanding higher taxes so that we could afford to spend more maintaining our infrastructure.  Look no further than the current crop of pork projects in the latest federal transportation bill to see that what we need isn’t more taxes, but less.

Six weeks after a fatal Minneapolis bridge collapse prompted criticism of federal spending priorities, the Senate approved a transportation and housing bill Wednesday containing at least $2 billion for pet projects that include a North Dakota peace garden, a Montana baseball stadium and a Las Vegas history museum.

That’s not the half of it.

Total spending on transportation “earmarks” next year is likely to be about $8 billion, when legislative projects from a previously approved, five-year highway bill are factored in. A newly released report by the Department of Transportation’s inspector general identified 8,056 earmarks totaling $8.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended in October, or 13.5% of the Transportation Department’s $63 billion spending plan.

It’s all about priorities.  The top priority of the vast majority of our elected leaders is not to judiciously use our precious tax dollars in the wisest of manners.  No, they first and foremost work to find ways to ensconce themselves in power by using our own money to buy our votes with goofy peace gardens and baseball stadiums.

Related content:

• The pork is behind the curtain
• Cramer secures funding for another project that should be local concern
• Congress continues its pork addiction
• David Prather defends earmarks
• I’ll believe it when I see it

This entry was posted by Brian on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Pork. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.