Bills of Greed

The novel The Enduring Debate illustrates how awful earmarks and pork barrel spending can become. The past should represent the mistakes once made, which should never be made again. Yet it seems that the very same waste in the bill under Clinton in 1997 has come back to repeat itself in 2009. The lack of knowledge about what was inside the actual stimulus is evident in both times. “Members of both parties chafed at having to vote on legislation crafted in such haste that few actually knew what was inside the 40-pund, 16-inch, 4,000 page end product…” (1) The recent stimulus passed has thousands upon thousands of “pet projects” that are still being worked out, showing that many do not know the entirety of what they are signing. Both spent billions upon billions of wasted taxpayer money that may be spent wisely, but is not always true in the case of tattoo removal or many other aspects of both bills. Congress should not let history repeat itself, yet it seems like they are following the same path walked 12 years ago.


Chapter 28 shows that earmarks may be a necessity if Congress ever desires to get a major bill passed. To appease all that vote, pork barrel spending allows nearly every state contentment so that they can greedily get what they want. CAGW searches through the thousands of earmarks, trying to single out what could be considered waste and what may be a necessary usage of money. Jonathan Cohn argued that this needs to be enforced because some programs do not deserve government spending. “You could argue, as pork-busters do, that, while projects like these may serve some positive function in society-perhaps even deserving of some government money-they should not be on the federal dime. Let the Hawaiians pay for their own calcium rich dinners!” (1) This is a very true statement because much of pork barrel spending is allocated among programs that are not the responsibility of government to fund. Some areas such as pollution and infrastructure may sometimes be necessary, yet it may sometimes be too hard to weed out the abuse from the worthy causes within pork barrel spending. Therefore, there may be some positives within earmarks because it allows for beneficial programs and an easier passing of a bill, yet the greed, neglect, and poor usage of taxpayer money still litters the lines of much pork barrel spending.

Source 1-David T. Canon, John J. Coleman, Kenneth R. Mayer, The Enduring Debate, 4th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006

Source 2-http://www.8000credit.org/150/