An astute reader passed along this item to Defense Tech yesterday, and weve only gotten around to including it today because its a pretty long list.
What we got, as first reported by the premier political newspaper in Washington, DC, The Politico, is a comprehensive list of earmarks included in the House version of the 2008 Defense Appropriations Bill passed a couple days ago.
Weve provided a link to the list, compiled by PorkBusters.org, which outlines every one of the 1,776 (nice number, huh?) earmarks and its sponsor.
DT invites its readers to dive into the (lengthy) list and pull out particularly egregious items for us to include in updated posts. Be that extra set of eyes for us!
– Christian
Young and the others that I recognize at the top of the list are mostly “Old Bulls” that have been in Congress since I was a boy over 30 years ago. I am so sick of these people who seem to think that the Congress just wouldn’t get anything done unless they were there.
I heard another Republican congressman from North Carolina (I think his last name was Black) being interviewed just before the last election who was bragging(!) about his ability to steer pork spending to his district. He said that his opponent (a young democrat fellow I think just out of the military) just didn’t “get it”; and that if he lost the election, then the people of his district were no longer going to enjoy the benefits of his pork barreling ways. Fortunately, I think he lost in the general election.
Now as a Republican who rejoiced when Newt Gingrich attacked the democrats who controlled Congress back in the early 90’s as “pork-barreling” and made a number of changes after he became Speaker to keep that in check (as far as I know anyway), I was absolutely dismayed to hear a leading Republican congressman bragging about his pork-barreling ways! And he wasn’t the only one; I believe that even John Boehner, the current Minority leader in the House, has defended the practice as good government.
I don’t have any sympathy for anyone in Congress who indulges in pork barrel spending. I can understand earmarks for things that are necessary and good, like needed highways and so on, but many of these items are just incredible: like museums for various animals or whatnot; and you know that the only reason they wanted it was to shower some federal dollars on their district, even if it accomplished nothing more than generating a few more paychecks for people they were connected with. It is disgusting.
Many of the items on that list look important for the war effort (at least from their names). If this stuff was so important, why didn’t the DoD request it in their budget submission? Is it because they knew the bottom line would be too big and they’re allowing Congress to bulk it up for them? I’ve heard this happens with other government departments. Anybody Congress/budget smart out there?
Here are some items that I would like to know more about. I will do so researching of my own, but I would also like DT to look into them.
Hawaii Undersea Chemical Weapons Assessment Program — Abercrombie, Neil
Project SOAR — Braley, Bruce
Advanced Radar Absorbing Tiles for Surface Ships — Cardoza, Dennis
China Geospatial Data Project — Everett, Terry
Lens XX Hypervelocity Ground Testing — Higgins, Brian
High-Power Microwave System for Vehicle Immobilization — Schiff, Adam
Project Kryptolite — Smith, Christopher
RAINCOAT — Walsh, James
LAU-7 Sidewinder Replacement Program — Waters, Maxine
I took a very quick look, and found two that I would question:
Spherical Airship Research and Development-Bishop, Sanford
Geospatial Airship Research Platform-Kaptur,Marcy
These would both appear to support the development of so called “high altitude airships”; a moot effort since smaller UAVs can fill the bill much more readily (UAV technology is available, proven, inexpensive).
proper work should be being done on airships for military transport, and that, ONLY on rigid shelled craft, not the inflated (no pun intended)and hyped “hybrid” airship types that would still use flexible envelopes. Both the “spherical airship” and “geospatial airship” are pure pork in that they are no more than glorified balloons or blimps; both of which are to limited in capability and not worth the monies put into them…at least, not as envisioned for the programs that are listed.
Please don’t tell me you guys are giving the Politico cred for crying out loud. Read their masthead cast of players and you will see a whole bunch of cast offs thrown out the door when downsizing hit the MSM like an aids epidemic.
Man that concept is so lacking in good judgment if you go back and read the interviews with the initial creators of the Politico by MSM followers when they were only just putting that place together.
All the initial bunch that seeded the place were shall we say off the beaten path and they somehow had to gather up enough fresh blood just out of J school of like minds to be hired cheap to carry the same story line on.
I recommend you pop into a look at that red flag stuck in the middle of your story and do a reality check.
Another breathless epistle from Christian.
If memory serves last year’s bill sported no less than 2,847 earmarks when it was done. The year before that it was more than 2,500, and well over 2,200 the year before that. In fact, if you followed the trend line since 1996 (270 earmarks, and the last time the number actually declined), you’d have expected this year’s crop to be in the low 3,000’s at least.
Whatever. It’s irrelevant anyway (unless you happen to be one of this year’s 1,776 lucky winners
SOAR
http://sitemaker.umich.edu/soar/home
RAINCOAT
Syracuse Research Corporation
The item listed on this site as “Project Soar” is listed in the bill as “$5,000,000 for the SOAR Virtual School District”. This earmark has no connection to the Artificial Intelligence/Cognitive Science effort entitled “The Soar Project”, as suggested by the JH post below.
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