Cato Institute
by Chris Edwards

08/23/05

The bipartisan support for pork-filled highway and energy bills passed in July highlighted a void in Washington: an opposition party willing to challenge wasteful spending. After a decade of Republican control in Congress, the budget has expanded by two-thirds and earmarked pork projects have exploded tenfold. Democrats snipe at Republicans for just about everything -- except their reckless spending. In the early 1990s, Republicans lambasted the Democrats' wasteful spending, and that helped propel them to power in 1994. Today, Democrats are missing a ripe opportunity to attack the GOP's equally wasteful ways. The two parties are partners-in-crime in pork spending, corporate subsidies, unneeded Pentagon weapons systems, misallocated homeland security funding, and other waste...

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=4251


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp