Thread: Pin the Pork on the Politician: It's Sweeping the Nation!

Pin the Pork on the Politician: It's Sweeping the Nation!

By Mary Katharine Ham · August 15, 2006 07:25 PM

I've got a fun game for all of us to play, the object of which is to make the worst of the Congressional appropriators pee their pants...err, get really nervous (because I couldn't think of a more Congressionally-appropriate figure of speech). Are you in?

All right. Here's how it goes. This is what the pork from one appropriations bill looks like-- 1,800 projects, worth more than $500 million total, averaging $268,000 apiece.

Go ahead and look at it. There are pictures. I'll wait here. That's the Labor/HHS Appropriations bill, set to possibly come up for a vote in September sometime.

Now, normally all those earmarks aren't available in any easily accessible form. They're snuck into bills and conference reports, whispered about between politicians, rarely talked about on the floor, tucked away from the public who pays for them.

Wouldn't it be cool if someone took the time to enter each earmark into an electronic database, which would then be made available to the taxpaying and blogging public to comb through if they were so inclined? You know, given that it's their money being spent and all.

And, wouldn't it be double-cool if the taxpaying and blogging public were so inclined, and began identifying which pork project belongs to whom and ever-so-politely inquiring of their duly elected representatives just what the heck they were thinking funding the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service?

Here's how you can play:

Check out the earmarks for your state and then call your congressman and ask if he or she sponsored any of your state's earmarks. If the answer is yes, ask why the congressman's name isn't on the earmark. If you recognize the institution designated to receive the earmarked tax dollars, call them and ask them what they intend to do with your money.

Then email us at info@examiner.com with the subject line "Earmarks" and tell us what you found out. The Examiner will be asking more questions about who got the earmarks and why, so your information could be very important. You will be part of an army of citizen journalists determined to shine some much-needed light on spending decisions made behind closed doors by powerful Members of Congress.


You can find your Member of Congress by zipcode at the top of the House webpage. And remember, your Members are home from D.C. right now, so there's no better time to bug them about this and make an impact than when they're on their vacations.

Here's that state-by-state breakdown again, and go check out how N.Z. Bear has applied his fantastical skills to the task, here. Lots of graphs, breakdowns by key word and per-capita spending. Yee-haw, right?

http://michellemalkin.com/index.htm

This is now on my 'to do' list for tomorrow.

Interesting what $2,260,000 of California's pork receipts are being spent on.

The following does not include medical benefits because they are had to pick out of the list.

$500,000 San Bernardino San Bernardino City Unified School District, for the English Learners Program
$400,000 Tracy Tracy Unified School District for the English as a Secondary Language Program
$350,000 San Bernardino San Bernardino County Superintendents of Schools, for English Language Learners Initiative
$350,000 Turlock Turlock Unified School District to develop and obtain software to be used for instruction in the English as a Second Language Program
$200,000 Roseville Roseville City School District, for English ad a Second Language program
$60,000 Sacramento Senior Legal Hotline, for a demonstration project to increase services to non-English-speaking seniors
$400,000 San Francisco Charity Cultural Services Center, for a job training and placement services for new or recent immigrants

I don't need to say much about that list.

Dixie

Looked up some of the programs my tax dollars are going to in CA:

$500,000 - San Bernardino - San Bernardino City Unified School District, for the English Learners Program

$400,000 - Tracy - Tracy Unified School District for the English as a Secondary Language Program

$350,000 - San Bernardino - San Bernardino County Superintendents of Schools, for English Language Learners Initiative

$350,000 - Arleta - El Proyecto del Barrio, for facilities and equipment

El Proyecto del Barrio, (EPDB) is a non-profit organization providing bilingual, bicultural (English/Spanish) comprehensive community services and advocacy.

$350,000 - Turlock - Turlock Unified School District to develop and obtain software to be used for instruction in the English as a Second Language Program

$205,000 Norwalk Cerritos College foundation for its Project HOPE academic assistance and college preparation program

Project HOPE is designed to increase the number and success of Latinos entering the health professions.

$200,000 - Roseville - Roseville City School District, for English as a Second Language program

$100,000 - Los Angeles - PUENTE Learning Center, for education programs

PUENTE Charter School is a start up charter elementary school designed to meet the educational needs of a largely Latino community in East Los Angeles.