With 2,966 examples costing about $11.1 billion, the pork in the 2006 Department of Defense Appropriations Bill, now law, is not hard to find. There are examples in almost every "title" of the bill, including parts most would probably hope to be pork-free.For example, the Military Personnel Title, which funds military pay and benefits, is burdened with $1.6 million for "Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Activities" to pay for members of Congress to invite "up to 10 students from each state and territory" to participate in a "Youth Rendezvous" in some lucky congressional district.
Nor do past embarrassments seem to have slowed the process. Last year, a classified project associated with the Duke Cunningham scandal received a $3 million earmark. This year, the same activity saw its funding tripled to $9 million. Found and identified by Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) under the heading "Classified Programs ? C3I," a project labeled "Foreign Supply Assessment Center" is "earmarked" to receive the money in the R&D/Navy Title of the 2006 DOD Appropriations TCS further reports that Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., was the prime mover of this "add-on."
Such examples of "pork" can be found in both the text of the legislation enacted into law by Congress and President George W. Bush, now enshrined as Public Law 109-148, and in something called the "Joint Explanatory Statement" (JES) that accompanies the text of the bill as it moves through its final stages of congressional approval. (Both the text of the bill in final form and the JES constitute what is called a "conference report" on Capitol Hill.)
Rep. Goode has a knack for ending up in paragraphs with the scandalous Duke, doesn't he?