Oink, Oink ... Update

Instapundit gives us a "porker" update. It is truly amazing how politicians with the most to lose can justify wasting you tax money on their pet projects (generally with their name on the highway, building, research project), in order to ensure their reelection.

In a similar vein, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) opposed the ban as “unrealistic” and even went so far as to erroneously claim that earmarking “has been going in this country for 230-some-odd years,” and that “The Founding Fathers would be cringing to hear people talking about eliminating earmarks.”
There is a proper system for projects to be vetted by agencies (the “all-knowing, all-powerful” bureaucrats) that’s fallen by the wayside. Congress did not earmark extensively until the 1980s.