Gee, here I was thinking the Democrats were going to:
serve the people’s interests, not special interests
create balanced budgets
pay down our national debt
put an end to Republican business as usual
And that they were mighty concerned with the lack of spending on maintaining our crumbling infrastructure. So, what’s a Democratic Congress to do???
Why, spend money on other stuff of course. After all, pork is only bad when it’s the Republicans doing. Although to me, it sounds like business as usual.
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/013024.php
Six weeks after a fatal Minneapolis bridge collapse prompted criticism of federal spending priorities, the Senate approved a transportation and housing bill Wednesday containing at least $2 billion for pet projects that include a North Dakota peace garden, a Montana baseball stadium and a Las Vegas history museum.
That’s not the half of it.
Total spending on transportation “earmarks” next year is likely to be about $8 billion, when legislative projects from a previously approved, five-year highway bill are factored in. A newly released report by the Department of Transportation’s inspector general identified 8,056 earmarks totaling $8.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended in October, or 13.5% of the Transportation Department’s $63 billion spending plan.
Senator Tom Coburn attempted to stop the pork party, to no avail. He offered an amendment that would have forbidden earmarks on transportation bills until all deficient bridges had been properly updated. That just barely failed — by a vote of 82 to 14. Eighty-two Senators voted to prioritize pork over infrastructure maintenance.