Be careful what you wish for.....

The whole country screamed for transparency in the federal earmark spending programs. If politicians were to dip into the pork barrel for our tax dollars for their favorite constituents, then we wanted to be able to see it! Sounded simple 'eh?

But wait!! There's more!! It seems that this new transparency has started a race in congress to see who can garner the most pork. A new badge of honor to be worn with pride as it were. John Murtha (D-Pa) leads the pack with $$163 million, Nancy Pelosi lags behind with $63 million and the race continues. John Q Public can share the blame because with this new transparency, we will expect our representatives to bring home the pork! "Round and round she goes, where she stops...nobody knows!" In 1996 there were 3000 earmarks, in this year of our Lord 2007, in the age of the new transparency it is only August 5th and there are 6500 earmarks posted spending $11 BILLION OF YOUR TAX DOLLARS. Never call them federal funds (the government has no funds), they are YOUR TAX DOLLARS.

Lest you forget what a BILLION dollars is: If you spent a thousand dollars a day, in a little less than three years you would have spent one Million dollars... but then you would have to carry on and spend the same $1000 per day for the next THREE THOUSAND YEARS to spend that BILLION DOLLARS in your hand. If Judas had been given a quick earmark of $1 Billion (instead of those 30 pieces of silver) and followed this $1000 a day habit, he'd still be at it and have another 900 years to go!

If you are reading this, you have Internet access obviously, Google "earmarks", do some research then follow your conscience...