Pork frenzy

Like junkies seeking one last fling before rehab, senators facing a potential ban on earmarks next year rushed this week to lard up a $1.2 trillion spending bill with thousands of pork projects.

"Many lawmakers view this as their last chance at delivering pork before serious fiscal belt-tightening begins," noted The Washington Post.

The Senate appropriations bill, released Tuesday, includes more than 6,000 earmarks costing $8 billion.

There's thousands for swine waste management in North Carolina and millions for clean water initiatives in rural Alaska. There's cash for maple syrup research in Vermont and peanut cultivation research in Alabama. Nevada will get $235,000 for the management invasive weeds.

All this comes on the heels of an election in which voters across the country said loudly and clearly that they want Washington's culture of spending changed. Apparently, many senators aren't listening.

"The American people said just 42 days ago, 'Enough!' ... Are we tone deaf? Are we stricken with amnesia?" said John McCain, the Arizona Republican.

The current charade reveals a dysfunctional Congress.

Because majority Democrats -- worried how voters might react to their big spending -- never passed any of the dozen appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began in October, the House approved a simple continuing resolution that will keep the federal government running until the next Congress convenes in January. But Democrats in the Senate resisted that route and instead waited for the lame-duck session to wrap all dozen spending bills into one 1,900-page piece of legislation, kicking off a porkfest just days before lawmakers are due to flee town.

While Republicans have led the push to ban earmarks, several of them -- including Nevada Sen. John Ensign -- added pet projects to the bill. But as the controversy over the pork has heightened, many GOP senators said they can no longer back the measure, leaving its fate in doubt.

Good. Waiting until Christmas to jam through a massive spending bill larded with pork that nobody has actually read is no way to responsibly run the federal government.

This is "a defining moment," Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said. "If we're going to embrace something new and understand the (voter) mandate, we won't go down this road."

No, you won't.