Will porking and earmarking decrease in the GOP House?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yes of course. We all know Republicans have such a fantastic record at actually carrying out their rhetoric against wasteful spending the like.

[Free Palestine]

The amount of porking will likely decrease, due to the added number of moralfags.

[Mr. Taft Republican]

Nah.

[Redalgo]

It has already been made clear by House Republicans that they do not intend to include military or homeland security spending in their intended budget cuts; I see no reason why the amount of pork or earmarking would sharply decrease. My opinions about defense spending in general set aside though, for the most part I do not particularly care about this issue. It is invaluable for pandering come time for campaigning, but we are not talking about a big slice of the federal spending pie here. Deep cuts to education and transportation, for instance? Give me a break. How much will that really trim pork, much less the federal budget when considered as a whole?

To pitch in what is perhaps an unpopular opinion, I honestly do not think that all of it is bad. Here in Montana there are ~950,000 people living on a swath of land the size of Germany. How can these not-so-affluent people support well-maintained yet important infrastructure while the predominantly conservative electorate clamors for low taxes and libertarian government? Federal assistance is hungered for. How else can Helena protect important assets from natural disasters such as forest fires during nasty years if the allocated funds get exhausted before the fire season is over? That is not to say it is very fair that people in California, Texas, and New York are helping to pay for the benefits I enjoy here in a comparatively backwater state, and the state government here does make a commendable effort to be fiscally responsible, but the reality is that sometimes a little bit of extra help can do a lot of good even if it does not directly benefit folks in ones own area.

Some of the pork and earmarks are beneficent, some are wasteful, and I am sure there are quite a few that exist solely to bolster an incumbent's odds of reelection. Without details about each specific item however, I try to avoid leaping to the commonplace but tiresomely cynical conclusion that a legislator's pet projects are probably undesirable wastes of taxpayer money.