The NEW Red vs. Blue US map.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten
Ted Stevens got called out on and lost his greatest pork project. Robert Byrd > Ted Stevens...

There were 1,500 pork projects when the Democrats lost Congress in 1994. Today there are 15,000. I think Byrd hasn't been keeping up.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


There were 1,500 pork projects when the Democrats lost Congress in 1994. Today there are 15,000. I think Byrd hasn't been keeping up.

Republicans and Democrats, and their pork spending.

[chequita guevara]

Keep in mind that not all pork barrel projects are necessarily bad. However, a 1,000-fold increase in pork is not likely because of a 1,000% increase in need.

[Barnabas]

anyway, I have to be sincere, europeans are much worse than the USA with farm subsidies

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Keep in mind that not all pork barrel projects are necessarily bad.

Yes, yes it is. It's a wasteful use of the taxpayer's money regardless of the party making use of the earmarks.

[chequita guevara]

No. Pork is any Federal spending in a local area. Highway bills, for example, are pork even when the highway is needed. The benefit is primarily to the local area, but the costs are spread. That's the definition of pork.

[Bosh]

Originally posted by Brachy-Pride
anyway, I have to be sincere, europeans are much worse than the USA with farm subsidies

And then there's the truck that drives around my house with the loudspeaker yelling at me to buy only Korean rice...

[MRT144]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
No. Pork is any Federal spending in a local area. Highway bills, for example, are pork even when the highway is needed. The benefit is primarily to the local area, but the costs are spread. That's the definition of pork.

and this is why pork endangers federalism.why should the people of texas pay for bridges in Alaska? Why should the people of wyoming recieve highways on the tax dollars of floridians?

[Odin]

Originally posted by MRT144


and this is why pork endangers federalism.why should the people of texas pay for bridges in Alaska? Why should the people of wyoming recieve highways on the tax dollars of floridians?

QFT.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
No. Pork is any Federal spending in a local area.

A pork project is a line item in an appropriations bill that designates tax dollars for a specific purpose in circumvention of established budgetary procedures. If it were actually a needed project, there wouldn't be any need to avoid established procedures in such a fashion.

I acctually like the criteria CAGW uses to define pork. It must satisfy at least two of these in order to qualify:

* Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
* Not specifically authorized;
* Not competitively awarded;
* Not requested by the President;
* Greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding;
* Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
* Serves only a local or special interest.

[Straybow]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
No. Pork is any Federal spending in a local area. Highway bills, for example, are pork even when the highway is needed. The benefit is primarily to the local area, but the costs are spread. That's the definition of pork.

Almost all Federal money is spent in "a local area." Highways are of benefit to more than just the local area, ie, through traffic. Pork is spending on things that almost exclusively benefit the locals.

The name originates from mail order companies that would sell meat by the barrel, and you bought it unseen and had no idea what kind of cuts or what quality you were getting. Application to Fed spending originally refered to riders attached to large, important bills so that opponents couldn't vote against or veto them.

The number of items that somebody counts as pork is not necessarily significant, only the total value. Maybe now those 15k items average only a fraction the size of the Dems' 1.5k items from fifteen years ago.

[edit: yeah, what dinodoc said]

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Oerdin
One thing I did like about Drake's graph and that is it shows Texas is the France of America. In the EU France is known as the ag-subsidy consuming glutton where as in the US Texas is clearly the king of getting subsidies for its agricultural goods.

Who would have thought that the "free market republicans" of Texas who championed the phrase "it's your money, not the government's" are actually subsidy gluttons sucking at not one but both tits of the government.

No, at $120 per cultivated acre Texas is quite firmly in the middle, with 22 states getting more subsidies. Eight states receive more than $240 per acre, and three states receive nearly triple: MA, FL, AZ (all over $320/ac).

[Ramo]

Western individualism and mistrust of government...

... and the Bush Administration's rabid authoritarianism has helped to drive the Governorships of New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado into the arms of Democrats (with Montana and Colorado recently electing Dem Senators). Nevada, of course, just narrowly missed a Dem pickup this year.

[Ramo]

No, at $120 per cultivated acre Texas is quite firmly in the middle, with 22 states getting more subsidies. Eight states receive more than $240 per acre, and three states receive nearly triple: MA, FL, AZ (all over $320/ac).

Agrisubsides per area is a pretty pointless comparison. More relevant, as KH mentioned, would be agrisubsidies per capita.

[Drake Tungsten]

... and the Bush Administration's rabid authoritarianism has helped to drive the Governorships of New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Montana, and Colorado into the arms of Democrats (with Montana and Colorado recently electing Dem Senators)

I doubt Bush had much to do with it. Elections for state governments seem pretty well insulated from issues at the federal level.