Inconsistent chatter from a Sacramento-based 'Sconi attorney.

Friday, September 30, 2005

Porkbusters


I just wanted to give a quick shout-out to the Porkbusters program that The Truth Laid Bear and Instapundit have been promoting (as well as many other blogs). Basically, the Porkbusters program is just bloggers looking at the current federal budget, and finding programs within their congressional district or state that is just plain old "pork". For those of you not in the know, "pork" is defined as a pejorative term for federal projects a Congressperson or Senator brings to his district in return for support from his/her voters (i.e. "bringing home the bacon"). This was prompted by the need to find cash to offset the amount of federal dollars going to the Gulf Coast in response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

So what can you do? Well, here is instructions from the blogfather himself, Instapundit:

Identify some wasteful spending in your state or (even better) Congressional District. Put up a blog post on it (or email to me @ jdhein22@gmail.com, and I will post it here). Go to N.Z. Bear's new PorkBusters page and list the pork, and add a link to your post.

Then call your Senators and Representative and ask them if they're willing to support having that program cut or -- failing that -- what else they're willing to cut in order to fund Katrina relief. (Be polite, identify yourself as a local blogger and let them know you're going to post the response on your blog). Post the results. Then go back to NZ Bear's page and post a link to your followup blog post.

The result should be a pretty good resource of dubious spending, and Congressional comments thereon, for review by blogs, members of the media, etc. And maybe even members of Congress looking for wasteful spending . . .

Feel free to help if you want or can. Here is a good source for finding "pork". And you can find out how to contact your Senators here or your Representatives here. Good luck!

UPDATE:

Some Porkbusters love from the Philadelphia Enquirer.

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