Dems' terror-war plan: Heap on the pork

Dems' terror-war plan: Heap on the pork
Exclusive: Jane Chastain reveals pet projects lawmakers put into surge-funding bill

How does this Congress plan to win the war on terror?

Pork – pure unadulterated pork!

* Does it plan to force-feed the terrorists large amounts of this fat-laden meat and wait a couple of decades for it to clog up their arteries?

* Does it plan to disguise the pork (which is detestable by Muslims), offer it to the terrorists and then yell, "Surprise"? (The devout ones then would commit suicide, saving us the trouble of hunting them down.)

* Does it plan to toss hogs out of airplanes as animal bombs?

It may be hard to believe, but some of the plans offered up by the last Congress to fund the war and the plan in process by the present Congress make even less sense than any of the above and is even more inhumane to "we the taxpayers."

"Pork" in Washington is just another name for wasteful, needless spending. Last year, Congress shamelessly tucked in $348 million in pork-barrel projects into the war on terror emergency supplemental bill, including:

* $110,000,000 for the National Animal Disease Center in Ames, Iowa;

* $9,000,000 for the National Park Service;

* $3,300,000 to help European communities with a music-listening dispute;

* $513,000 for a planning and development council in Princeton, W.Va., for water and wastewater infrastructure improvements.

Does Congress seriously think it can keep us safe with healthy cats and dogs, national park rangers, peaceful European music and sewage treatment plants?

Of course, the really big bucks for the war on terror are in the Defense and Homeland Security appropriations bills. Citizens Against Government Waste identified 2,658 pork projects in those 2007 bills at a cost of $13.2 billion, which included:

* $5,500,000 for the Gallo Center to study the effects of alcohol and drug abuse on the brain;

* $1,350,000 for the Obesity in the Military Research Program;

* $1,000,000 for a telescope to search for extra-terrestrial intelligence.

Where are all those fat soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines Congress is so worried about? As for intelligent life in outer space, taxpayers should be more worried about whether there is any intelligent life in Washington.

The bills above were cobbled together by a Republican-led Congress.

Now, it's the Democrats' turn, and it looks as if they will give the pork lovers in the GOP a run for their money.

After making an early show of identifying and suspending earmarks – those costly set asides otherwise known as pork – Democrats are literally cramming pork into the bill they are putting together to fund the troop surge in Iraq.

Let's be clear: Most Democrats want to give up on the war there, but they are afraid to vote against the money for our troops. Now, they will be able to tell the anti-war crowd, "I wanted to vote against the bill, but there was all this money for projects you support so I HAD to vote for it."

Pretty lame, huh?

Some have said Democrats have no strategy, but these people are wrong. The current Democrat strategy is: Bleed the taxpayers!

Currently, there is more than $20 billion in the bill that is not remotely related to the war effort, including:

* $4.3 billion to bail out farmers hurt by droughts, freezes and other regrettable but predictable problems that should not be used to undermine the war effort.

* $74 million for the fat-cat peanut farmers, one of the most coddled special interest groups on earth. It may be hard to believe, but you can't grow peanuts in this country without a peanut quota. This holds down the supply and drives up the price. Now, the Democrats want to hand the peanut farmers our hard-earned tax dollars to pay their storage and handling fees as they market their overpriced crop.

* $283 million in subsidies for small dairy farmers, another coddled special interest group. Milk may do a body good, but this county over produces dairy products because we continue to hand farmers money just for being there.

* $400 million for the low-income energy assistance program. Democrats have blocked efforts to tap our oil resources, as well as efforts to build nuclear power plants. This keeps us at the mercy of foreign oil suppliers, which drives up the price of energy for everyone.

* $400 million set aside to help the timber industry in Oregon, which has been hurt became these same Democrats don't want trees harvested in our national forests. Wasn't that why they were set aside in the first place?

The smell of pork frying in Washington is stinking up the place again. This kind of spending is wrong in an appropriations bill but, in a bill to fund the war effort, it is an outrage!