But Why the Federal Government?

The callers to Jack Cafferty’s show seem to think that nobody has any money other than the federal government. This latest $410 billion spending bill (how many bills above $400 billion do we have floating around anyway?) includes funding for a honey bee laboratory and swine odor and manure management, amongst other things.

One of the callers points out that what seems like pork to one person might seem perfectly legitimate to another, stating “for Jindal, monitoring volcanoes is an earmark, but for Alaskans, monitoring hurricanes may be earmarks! So, should we stop both?”

Another, in reference to the honey bee laboratory says that it seems “silly at first glance, however when you recall that there appears to be something wiping out the honey bee population, and that bees are necessary for crops like apples, peaches, soybeans, pears, pumpkins, cucumbers, cherries, raspberries, blackberries and strawberries, it quickly starts looking like maybe we should be pouring MORE money into this research.”

Yet another says that swine odor and manure management “is a smart investment that’ll pay off in clean air, clean water, cheap food, and jobs.”

I agree that volcano monitoring is important, as is hurricane monitoring. I agree that the honey bee population decline is a serious problem, and probably should be funded more than it is. And I have no problem with researching swine odor and manure management. But why is it that the federal government is paying for these things?

The bill includes a mere $1.7 million for studying the honey bee issue. The revenues of the industries that could be affected by the honey bee problem number in the billions. Are you telling me you can’t get all those interested parties to put together $1.7 million in private funding to research this problem?

Volcano monitoring is mostly a local issue. In some rare cases it may affect more than one state. Why not let the state government pay for it? Why must someone in Florida pay for volcano monitoring in Washington?

Likewise, swine odor and manure management is a local issue. Let the states that are affected deal with it. If they want to band together and pool their money to more efficiently use resources then I’m sure they can coordinate that. But again, why should someone who lives in a state unaffected by swine odor have to pay for this research?

Too much money is sent to Washington D.C., and then returned right back to where it came from, except that along the way every beauracratic office took a slice of it in order to manage the trip. Why should I need to send money to Washington D.C. in order to help out the school that’s one mile from my house? Why doesn’t Washington just leave the money where it started? Why don’t we let those parties who are directly affected by issues deal with them, rather than the federal or state governments?