Senate hooked on pork spending

What does it take to get the pork out. Not even Hurricane Katrina can push the Senate to do the right thing. From Tax Payers for Common Sense: A Spineless Senate Volume X No. 36 - October 21, 2005 Last night, Senators had a golden opportunity to get their spending priorities straight in light of massive budget deficits and the tens of billions needed to rebuild the Gulf. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), one of the Senate’s only voices for fiscal responsibility, presented his colleagues the chance to cut $75 million in funding for the two infamous “bridges to nowhere” in Alaska, and send that money directly to Louisiana to rebuild the Interstate 10 bridge over Lake Pontchartrain. Unfortunately for taxpayers, we are stuck with a Senate dominated by spineless federal money-grubbers. A measly 15 Senators could muster up enough courage to vote for the cuts; the rest, perhaps too scared of a tongue-lashing from Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, voted to keep the bridges, two of the worst pork projects in recent memory. Read More at: Spineless Senate Number of Pork Projects in Federal Spending Bills 2005 - 13,997 2004 - 10,656 2003 - 9,362 2002 - 8,341 2001 - 6,333 2000 - 4,326 1999 - 2,838 1998 - 2100 1997 - 1,596 1996 - 958 1995 - 1439 Using 2005 numbers, by voting down the “Bridges” amendment, the Senate let the country know that it was unwilling to defund 2 out of 13,997 pork projects today. That’s 0.0142887762 percent.