“In the next 16 days, Congress will spend more than $3 trillion in taxpayer money.”

For the record, the national debt at the time this was written was $11.7 trillion.  It’s higher now, but that doesn’t stop these porkers:

In the next 16 days, Congress will spend more than $3 trillion in taxpayer money. To cover these programs, some Americans will be working up to three hours of each day.

Vast amounts of that money will be spent in the form of earmarks, specially designated pet projects that members of Congress use to bring federal funds back to their home states. Since 44 congressmen make no earmarks at all, that means the rest are doing more than their share. For example, in the House, just 4 percent of members took home 32 percent of all the bacon — and all were members of the Defense Appropriations Committee.

Three porkers mentioned in the article are Sen. Thad Cochran, R-Miss., Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Ha., and Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.  Here’s a few of the projects our taxes will fund.

Inouye wants:

  • $12 million to monitor sea turtles and monk seals.
  • $5 million for a supercomputer to help study planets and fruit flies.
  • $8 million for a cultural exchange between villages that once made a living killing whales.
  • $24 million for the East West Center, a private think tank even President Obama wants to cut.
  • $500,000 for music enrichment programs for Native Hawaiian children — part of $59 million for health and education programs targeted to Native Alaskans or Hawaiians.

Murtha wants:

  • $500,000 to improve the profitability of dairy farms.
  • $1 million to toward the $250 million Sky Shuttle, an urban Mag-Lev train for a university in southwest Pennsylvania.
  • $1 million for a trolley museum.

And Cochran wants:

  • $201 million to his alma mater, the University of Mississippi, including $10 million for programs at the Thad Cochran Research Center.
  • $750,000 Mississippi Biotechnology Association building — an organization that has no members and doesn’t exist, and that got $450,000 last year.
  • $4.4 million to build fire stations, $14 million to improve drinking water in local communities (responsibilities typically left to the states).
  • $1.6 million for a mobile music lab.
  • $650,000 to a private Christian school (Piney Woods) on 2,000 wooded acres where student tuition is $31,400.
  • $400,000 to pay overtime for the Jackson Police Department to combat drug use.
  • $950,000 for the local Audubon Society, despite national Audubon assets topping $18 million.

Unreal.  There was a time when Senators and Congressmen understood what was Constitutional.  Now, we get Republicans asking for three quarters of a million dollars for an organization that doesn’t exist.

In fact, Cochran is going for a record amount of earmarks this year.  Never before has anyone requested $2.6 billion in one year.

If we do give the Congress back to the Republicans, this type of thing has to be stopped. 

Cross posted at All American Blogger.com.

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