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Reality Check: The War On Budget Pork

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Jan 30, 2008 11:32 pm US/Central

Reality Check: The War On Budget Pork

Reporting
Pat Kessler

As promised, President George W. Bush has issued an executive order directing federal agencies to ignore pet projects of politicians that are hidden away in spending bills.

Those pork barrel projects, which are commonly called 'earmarks', amount to billions of dollars a year. However, the Bush's war on pork may have little impact.

Since 2001, Bush has signed into law many spending bills containing billions of dollars of earmarked projects. Now he's putting the brakes on the bacon.

"If you send me an appropriations bill that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half," said Bush in the State of the Union address. "I will send it back to you with my veto."

Here's what you NEED TO KNOW.

The earmark threat is tough talk, but won't kick in until President Bush leaves office.

He's not likely to get any more spending bills before the end of the year, and he's promising not to touch the thousands of earmarks included in this year's budget.

IN FACT...

This Democratic Congress piled on the pork, adding it to the big Republican oinkers from the year before.

There are more than 11,000 earmarks last year, totaling $16.9 billion.

That's actually less than 2005, when Republicans snuck in a record 14,000 earmarks, which totaled $27 billion.

Here's the REALITY.

None of those pork projects got a vote in the House or Senate because they were snuck into massive spending bills. They include things like bike paths and baseball parks, a tea cup museum and tourist motel.

That's NOT THE WHOLE STORY.

There are new rules in Congress that now require sponsors of earmarks to identify themselves, but it hasn't stopped the pork from coming in big slices.

Click here to see who tops the list for biggest earmarks.

That's Reality Check.

 

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