Government pork: 4 little piggies

Have you ever heard the term “government pork”? Simply put it is the government throwing away its (our) money on pointless projects that serve no ones better interest except the politicans. I’ve decided to bring four such pork projects to your attention.

15 billion dollars

In 1991 when the city of Boston broke ground on the so-called Big Dig project who would have ever guessed it would explode beyond its estimated 5.5 billion dollars to over 15 billion dollars? Who would have ever guessed that in addition to the initial cost just to get things going the tax payers of the Commonwealth would be saddled with ever increasing costs of maintenance, and upkeep? I guess those questions are kind of unfair. Perhaps I should ask who aside from the government didn’t know?

But there’s good news! The government has once again come to our rescue, or so they’d have you believe. But first a little background. Aside from the huge cost overruns the Big Dig project has also fallen victim to tragedy when 39 year old Milena Del Valle was killed by tons of concrete tiles collapsing and smashing the car she and her husband were in, seemingly endless leaks which will probably never be stopped completely, and a lot of questionable backroom political wrangling which saw engineering giant Bechtel make out with nothing more than a slap on the wrist over innumeral safety violations.

11.something million dollars

Do you know what that number represents? It’s the hourly cost we in America endure to wage war in Iraq. Nearly 275 million dollars a day. Can you even begin to fathom how much good we could do, even unto our enemies, for 275 million dollars a day? The mind literally boggles at the concept. Let me say that again. Two hundred and seventy five MILLION dollars a day. I don’t know about anyone else but I can dream up a whole host of better ways to spend 275 million dollars a day. And people wonder why we’re going into a recession. Sorry George, but all the economic stimulus in the world can’t save anyone from your lunacy.

130 billion dollars

I like space. Both in terms of “give me some space!” and astronomically. I find it to be pleasing and interesting. As much as I like space I can’t imagine spending 130 billion dollars to hang around up there. It seems that even though I’m not a visionary other people are. Welcome to the International Space Station which is supposed to be an effort between NASA, ESA,JAXA, Roskosmos, and the CSA. Anyone else amazed that we can come up with so much internation cooperation? I guess it really shouldn’t surprise me. If nothing else governments can certainly agree on taxing their citizens to death for pork projects like this.

1.3 billion dollars

Do you eat? Chances are you do, and if you’re like me you could stand to skip a meal or ten, but wait I’m getting way off track. Chances are you are a hunter/gatherer. You hunt for a parking space and gather your food at the local store. Someone has to grow that food. For those of you who aren’t quite with me here I’m talking about farmers. A strange thing has happened in the United States and other nations however. We now pay farmers 1.3 billion dollars here in the US not to grow crops. 1.3 billion dollars. Uh, how about letting them grow the crops and getting it sent out to the rest of the world who needs it? Can’t do that? Then why not use that money to help the countries who need it to develop their own farming industry?

Now if you’ll excuse me I need some sleep so I can work so I can get taxed so the government can keep throwng away my money so I can find something else to bitch about so I can do it all over again so I can stop writing this hideous run-on sentence.

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