Sen. Shelby really, really loves pork
Out here in the hinterlands, of course, some people see such earmarks, for public buildings, infrastructure and support of colleges and universities as essential to progress.
So it was somewhat refreshing to hear Tuscaloosa U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby give a full-throated defense of all the money he has brought back to Alabama in his long career, a career that has made him one of the most powerful members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, where most of the vast amount of money spent every year by Congress is divvied up.
Shelby told a meeting of the Chamber of Commerce in West Alabama this past Friday that he apologizes to no one for the bacon he has brought home in the form of specific earmarks for projects all over Alabama.
Shelby, who had been in Congress since 1979 and in the Senate since 1985, even boasted that he had been responsible for the allocation of more than $500 million for the University of Alabama and that his goal would be to bring $1 billion in earmarks to the Capstone before he leaves Washington.
I’ll be blunt: I don’t like pork spending. Not one bit. To hear Shelby boast about wanting to secure $1 billion in pork for the town he lives in that is also home to his alma mater just makes me ill.
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Just when I think Shelby is a half-way decent representative of us, his constituents, he goes and pulls this crap.
I agree with your sentiments, Brian.
Until you can convince the voters a senator or representative’s job is not to bring it home, this is what you will see.