Pork-barrel Waste

Radu Buican’s recent blog post entitled “Why I agree/disagree with the practice of Earmarking Federal Dollars for State Projects / Pork Spending?” brings attention to the poor reasoning behind earmarking and pork-barrel projects. I certainly agree with the points that he makes in his argument. He clearly states why what the government is doing is wrong, as well as backing up his statements with a number of specific examples.
It is indeed true that a lot of the pork-barrel projects instated by Congress are solely to keep constituents satisfied and subsequently ensure their votes for the next election. Now, it’s not to say that implementing beneficial projects for the American people is wrong by any means. After all that is one of the main points of government. The problem here is that a lot of these projects are rather frivolous and unnecessary. The American taxpayer’s money is unfortunately being wasted on ridiculous projects in order for incumbents to keep the citizens within their district happy with their representation. The money used for these projects collectively comes from all U.S. taxpayers; therefore the projects should benefit the United States as a whole at least partially. Also, the federal government should implement stricter stipulations upon how Congress can spend federal revenue. A perfect example that Buican used is the building of a $223 million bridge that connects a town of 8,900 people to a town of population 50, in which a ferry already runs between the two cities. Projects like these need to stop. Incumbents are buying votes at the expense of American’s hard earned money. We are essentially donating millions of dollars to a campaign fund, and a lot of citizens are none the wiser. It is definitely necessary to implement a number of different projects within the country, but they need to be well thought out, ensuring a well reasoned and proper use of taxpayer’s money.
Buican presented this debacle nicely, constructing a well written and though out argument against the improper actions of certain government officials. Hopefully, in the near future there will be stipulations on how the government can spend taxpayer’s dollars. We are already trillions of dollars in debt, the last thing our country needs is to be wasting money.