Hey Big Spender

Citizens Against Government Waste has anointed Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) Porker of the Year for 2003, based on an online poll that asked respondents to choose among five finalists. Specter, you may recall, "was selected as the October Porker of the Month for including language in the fiscal 2003 Emergency Supplemental portion of the fiscal 2004 Legislative Branch Appropriations Act that provided $1.4 million for three pork-barrel projects in Pennsylvania."

I grew up in Northeastern Pennsylvania, home of such legendary pork-barrel spenders as Reps. Dan Flood (D) and Joseph McDade (R). I found that Specter at least had a sense of humor about funneling tax dollars to his constituents. When I was working for my hometown paper in the late '80s, he visited a postal processing center (I think) in Wilkes-Barre that was threatened with closure. After walking around the facility for a few minutes, he announced that it was indispensable and that he would do everything in his power to keep it open. I suggested that it was hard to believe he could arrive at that conclusion based on a five-minute tour. He corrected me: It was more like 10 minutes.

Comments

[Brad S]

Congratulations, Arlen!

In your honor, CAGW will be building a library, museum, and highway in your name.

[diego]

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[tim]

no one’s a bigger crook than joe mcdade. mcdade is considered a legend in northeastern pennsylvania, and served 18 terms as congressman. the whole city of scranton has been “rebuilt” through federal pork-barrel projects engineered by him. a mall, two museums, a hotel and conferrence center were all built through federal tax dollars. my college even named a building after him. he probably gave federal money to my school too. but it’s private. the fedearl government isn’t allowed to do give money to a private school. lol.

[Jefferson]

Also, Specter looks like The Brain from “Pinky and the…” fame.

Disconcerting.

[Highway]

I think they just gave Robert Byrd a ‘Lifetime Porking Achievement Award’ and permanently removed him from consideration for the ‘of the year’ award. 😉

[Rick Barton]

Go to the site and look at both the house and senate scores. The GOP folks tend to be way more fugal than the Dems. Check out NTU.org. Same thing. Not all GOPrs are a lot better than the Dems of course. But go to both sites and check it out. It’s quite lopsided:

http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_NewsRelease_02052004

NTU.org

It’s going to be a weird political year at the national level because Bush is such a big government guy and not worth lifting a finger to help, to put it charitably, (I predict that the Libertarian candidate for president will poll a record number of votes from Republicans) yet we have this stark contrast between the parties in congress.

[Art Gibroni]

Wow, another person from that area we call NEPA!

Where’d you go to high school, Mr. Sullum?

[Jacob Sullum]

I went to a Jewish high school near Philadelphia, but my siblings mostly attended Valley West.

[Gino]

What, did Senator Byrd die or something?

[Rob]

Wow, I thought only people from my hometown (St. Louis) asked strangers where they went to high school.

I guess no other piece of information is as helpful when you’re mentally assigning someone to a particular socio-economic stratum…

[kevrob]

Rob:

The H.S. question crops up in other areas, but my favorite comes from my friends from Chicago who were raised Catholic. When they meet someone who also grew up in Chi-town they ask “what parish?”

Little platoons, folks.

Kevin

[Adam]

Speaking of, Citizens Against Government Waste has its own blog now. Plenty of good stuff over there. Long URL, though.

http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=news_blog

[joe]

NTU is a right wing organization, and calling whatever programs you oppose for philosophical reasons “pork” is a handy debating tactic. So that’s really no wonder, Rick.

I had an amusing run in with their executive director in the early 90s. I showed up selling art door to door, and since she was taking a very long lunch, the staff guilted her into buying some prints for the walls. As we were walking towards the car to look at the merchandise…

“Wait a minute, I’ve heard of the National Taxpayers Union.”

“Oh yeah?” Very suspiciously.

“Yeah. You’re the people who are pushing the flat tax proposal.”

“That’s right.” Much friendlier.

“Yeah. Boy, that proposal’s gotten a lot of attenion lately…” Smiling now.

“…since Jerry Brown made it a centerpiece of his campaign.”

Smouldering. “Well, it didn’t REALLY start getting attention until Speaker Armey began pushing it!”

I guess I’m just not much of a capitalist.

[Rick Barton]

joe,

The NTU awards ratings based on TOTAL spending regardless of category. So that their ratings are a very objective guide to who the frugal folks are, and who the big spenders are. The CAGW are the ones who named Sen. Arlen Specter “Porker of the Year”.

Ah yes, Jerry Brown! Although; I think that the record shows that in congress the GOP folks tend to be way more fugal than the Dems; Jerry Brown seems way more fiscally responsible than Bush. I remember a few elections ago when he came out of nowhere to win the Colorado Democratic primary. It was great. His “Moon Beam” agenda had some strong libertarian aspects. It was funny to listen to the Colorado Dems trying to explain away his victory.

[Melissa Harrington]

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DATE: 05/21/2004 05:54:50
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