The Last Feast of the Most Irresponsible Congress in US History

The most irresponsible Congress in the history of the US is staying true to form going out the door on a massive spending binge. How bad is it? The new $1.1 Trillion, 1,924 page budget bill is crammed full of pork, spending an average of $575.13 million per page. It contains over 6,000 earmarks. For those who don't understand earmarks, they are legislative provisions that direct approved funds to be spent on specific projects, or that direct specific exemptions from taxes or mandated fees. In practice many Congressmen get a percentage of the earmark kicked back into their campaign funds as a donation from those receiving the earmarks. So, in essence, they are an easy way for Congress to fund their own campaigns with taxpayer money, which might explain their reluctant to outlaw the practice.

A list of specific earmarks totaling over 26 million dollars can be found at:

http://coburn.senate.gov/public//index.cfm?a=Files.Serve&File_id=4866e250-f1e6-476a-bbc0-b7029f627fbf

But the crowning achievement for these bastions of integrity is that no one will be allowed to read the bill before the votes are taken. Why should anyone care what's in the bill as long as it spends the right amount of money? Oh, the joys of being a legal modern-day robber baron!

Yours truly would prefer to see the budget bill kicked into the next Congress, and the government shut down for few weeks, except for essential services (whatever they may be). After all, today's borrowed money become the tax increases of tomorrow.

Update:  After rising to $1.3 Trillion, it looks like this spending bill collapsed under the weight of its own pork in the Senate last night.  We'll see if it rises again from the ashes like the phoenix or it if stays dead.