Congress doing what it does best

Even though the ruling Republicans' majority leader, Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, claimed the omnibus bill passed in Congress represented "holding the line" on the federal budget, $15.8 billion dollars worth of typical pork-barrel spending is included in the measure.

The US debt is higher in real dollars than ever before, and I see no signs of the trend reversing as the Medicare drug benefit bill is set to kick into gear soon, and of course the social security experiment gets closer to insolvency with each sunrise and Democrat promise "not to touch" their pet project.

Does this year's nearly $16 billion really matter to the bottom line? No.

Would there be any tangible benefits were the pork projects not included? Absolutely.

These spending bills contribute to the notion in the minds of Americans that the federal government exists to fund their projects, organizations, communities, and business interests. The sooner the feds cease filling the funding trough from which selfish opportunists feed, the better off we'd all be.

In the place of the "federal funds" (read: my tax dollars) would be citizen iniatives, community fund raising iniatives, and capitalist ventures. Until then, we can rest assured that the country music Hall of Fame in Nashville will get plenty of federal funding. So too will the merry go round playhouse in Auburn, NY and the American cotton museum in Greenville, TX.