My distinguished colleague from West Virginia

[DanS]

Yep, that's right. Sen. Byrd, the king of pork, is the new old chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Strike up the band. Byrd will make "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens look like a piker.

How many billions of your money will be thrown into the giant maw of Senator Byrd? Hide your wallets!

[DinoDoc]

Makes me wish the federal line item veto was Constitutional.

I wonder when someone (You know who) will be along to say Byrd's pork is good and proper while Republican pork spending was wasteful and corrupt

[Dinner]

I really don't know. What pork has byrd done which is more outrageous then Stevens building a bridge the size of the Golden Gate to connect an island with a population of 50 where stevens owned most of the property?

I honestly want to know because if he is a porker then I'd like to be able to point that out on other forums. I'm sure they'll ask so I need details.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Oerdin
I honestly want to know because if he is a porker ...

Byrd Droppings

"You might as well slap my wife as take away my highway money." - Sen. Robert Byrd

[Kuciwalker]

[Ramo]

Byrd probably will be about as bad as Stevens on pork. The only reason why he looked any better in the past couple Congresses is that he was in the Minority...

[MichaeltheGreat]

What else would you do with West Virginia? It would be a tad embarassing for the US to have a third-world country within its borders.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
What else would you do with West Virginia?

Maybe not waste the taxpayer's money to such an extent?

[Spiffor]

Well, his investments on education don't seem that useless to me.

And it seems West Virginia was in dire need of infrastructure, though I wonder how the heck one can cram 37,000 miles of highway in W Virginia.

[MichaeltheGreat]

What if they all decide to up and migrate to Mississippi and depress your wage base and increase unemployment?

Besides, this is the government that routinely runs close to a billion a day deficits, pisses tens of billions on projects like the F-22 and Stryker, and finds more ways to burn off money for crap that doesn't work than you can imagine.

Byrd's largesse for the folks of West Virginia pales in comparison to the waste in DoD and DHS, which is routinely unchallenged.

If you're interested in pork, how about addressing that the majority of "finished" defense contracts since 1979 haven't been closed out by a determination of final indirect costs? Government overpayments of projected indirect costs probably exceed 100 billion, and may be far higher, but contracting officer and auditor staff has been reduced, not increased, despite that unfinished workload. Why are make-work projects like highways bad, when fake-work projects like DoD and DHS cost-plus contracts are unchallenged? Is it because L-M, Northrup-Grumman and Halliburton shareholders deserve more government largesse?

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Yay!!!!

Repugs were winning the dumboff contest with the various leadership and chair moves but looks like Dems shot into a commanding lead.

I'll see your racist Lott move and raise you a KKK Byrd porker.

Now if only the house can cement their party's position by having Alcee Hastings to chair the intelligence comittee.

[Zkribbler]

I really like the hang-em-before-they-get-the-chance-to-commit-the-crime attitude of the opening post. It's a real time saver.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
I really like the hang-em-before-they-get-the-chance-to-commit-the-crime attitude of the opening post. It's a real time saver.

Before? Is this the first you've heard of Byrd?

[Dinner]

I do know what one person calls pork often is considered a vital project by others. Still, there should be fewer earmarks and more transparency in government appropriations.

[Admiral]

Well, that was a bad sign, but to be expected. I mean, the guy's practically forever years old, so he's got the seniority. (and, let's not forget that he's also the president pro tem.) Hopefully, however, he'll be balanced by Democrats committed to fiscal responsibility and Republicans either equally committed or just wanting to mess with the appropriations chair.