THE WAR ON PORK

I stumbled across this "commentary" in the Chicago Tribune written by a man named John McCarron. It caught my eye because of the word "pork" ... and we here at the Neal Boortz Show are always trying to dig up the latest in government waste and abuse. We do that because it is so blasted easy. Well, this time I happened to find an actual promoter of pork ... a defender of earmarks. John McCarron believes that there is a case to be made for earmarks. And here is a summary of why earmarks are not a bad thing, according to a liberal Democrat who feels that all wealth belongs to government.

Excuse #1: Earmarks are been around as long as the republic.

So has halitosis. There are a lot of things that have been around since the foundation of this country, but that doesn't mean that they are all right or can't change. Arguing "Well we've always had earmarks" is an excuse verging on ignorant and childish. But hey .. he's a Democrat

Should earmarks be eliminated? Yes No Wait, how would we be able to tell which sheep were ours?

Excuse #2: Earmarks are needed to pass legislation.

Well, that would be because they're allowed. To McCarron, no bills would ever be passed because politicians would get nothing out of voting for someone else's legislation. It's the people's job to vote unproductive legislators out of office ... if politicians don't do anything because they aren't getting something out of it, let the people put someone in office that will not rely on the wink-wink, nudge-nudge politics of backroom deals.

Excuse #3: Earmarks don't cost THAT much.

To a man like this, "thousands" of earmarks costing "billions" of dollars means nothing to him because he sees this as the government's money. He would be wrong. This is the taxpayer's money. Tell that to the people who pay the taxes. This arrogant putz is telling us that it is far more important for the government to seize this money and spend it on buying votes than it is to allow the family that earned it to keep it and spend it on their own needs. Do you know how many families in this country could use those billions of dollars on something more useful than a Woodstock museum?

Now, those of you that said "yes, eliminate earmarks," how many of you have told your representatives this? Absolutely, I have! Whoops, no, I haven't.

Excuse #4: The number of earmarks has been falling (because of Democrats)

This is flat out wrong. There were 32,000 earmark requests last year, compared to 13,000 in 2006. And to say that the Democrat majority is the cause for this ... here's a great resource for you to explore. Facts are troublesome things.

Excuse #5: President Bush is waging a war against earmarks to distract from his "ill-advised military forays"

There's just no way to argue with an idiot.

Excuse #6: Earmarks are for "worthwhile stuff"

This "worthwhile stuff" may be worthwhile to those who think it is the government's role to provide everything for everyone. If the Woodstock community really wanted a museum, why is it the government's job to provide it?

Now here's the truth. Earmarks are for buying votes. Period. Nothing else. The money is appropriated to the Defense Department, or to Health and Human Services, or to Transportation ... whatever. These departments have professional (so to speak) staffs who's job it is to allocate the expenditure of these funds base (we hope) on efficiency and need. Then along comes a politician who is interested in one thing ... keeping his position of power. He doesn't want these government agencies to decide how their budgets are spent. He can't take credit for the work they do. Soooooo along come the earmarks. He passes a little earmark that tells the department of so-and-so to how they're going to spend X amount of their money. He puts his vote-buying quest above the expertise of the departments spending the money.

Simple as that.

THE INEQUALITY MYTH

This whole "Two Americas" nonsense is getting really old. So let me enlighten you on some statistics that the lamestream media will likely never report ... or challenge Hillary and Obama on the campaign trail.

For one thing, the notion that the poor are getting poorer is completely false.

Demographic changes in the size and composition of U.S. households have distorted the statistics in important ways. The Census Bureau says that the share of the economic pie consumed by those defined by the government as poor has been shrinking; what Democrats fail to tell you is that this pie has grown tremendously. The real GDP is currently three times greater than it was in the 1970s at $14 trillion. So the amount received by the bottom 20% increased from $181 billion to $476 billion. Adjusted for population growth, this means that the average income for people in the bottom 20% has risen by 36%. And this isn't just for the poor, economic growth has raised income across all populations.

According to the annual survey of household, the "typical" household keeps changing. This is also something that Democrats will never tell you. In essence, by comparing today's statistics to decades passed, it is like comparing apples to oranges. Here's an example. Since 1970, the rate in households categorized as divorced, never-married or single-person has increased dramatically. Back in the 1970s, 71% of American households were two-parent families. That statistic has shrunk to 51%. As a result, the average household size has shrunk from 3.14 persons to 2.57 persons.

Ok so what does that mean? It means that when you adjust for these changes in household size and composition ... the income share of the poor increased by 8% and reduced the standard of inequality by 4%. In other words, all of these "inequality trends" would be obsolete.

So when you look at the "poor," even after just two years, you are no longer looking at the same people. Democrats never take mobility into account, and they fail recall the fact that nearly half of all our growth comes from immigration; Legal and illegal resident enter at the lowest rungs of society. In the big picture, immigrants move up the economic rungs, but they are replaced by new immigrants ... and the cycle continues. But it is very rare to see household stay "poor" for more than a few years.

I know this is painful for your bedwetters out there, but we are almost done. Living standards have risen across all income spectrums. Since 2000, GDP has risen 18% and population growth by 6%, which means that per capita incomes are rising. Personal consumption has risen by $2.5 trillion since 2000. More Americans today own homes and new cars, and items such as laptops, iPhones and flat screen TVs have become necessities rather than luxuries. The average person defined as "living in poverty" in America has a higher standard of living than the average European.

That should give you enough ammunition to tackle your liberal friends who are whining about these "Two Americas."

ARE YOUR FOOD PRICES GOING UP? THANK AN ENVIRONMENTALIST

Well, let's see. Bread is up about 24% over the past year. Milk is up 25%. Beef is actually going down .. but it will be going way up later this year.

Reason? Ethanol! The people who are growing corn for ethanol are doing just fantastic out there! The wheat and dairy farmers see these corn growers raking in the cash and they say ... "What the hell! I'm getting rid of these cows. I'm not planting any more wheat. I'm growing corn! So ... food becomes more expensive. But why, you say, is beef cheaper? Because farmers are dumping their cows! Wait until the cows have all received ye old axe to the head .. then watch the price of beef going up!

In the meantime ... for God's sake, let's not drill off the coast of Western Florida or in ANWR. And let's not get into a crash program to build nuclear power plants. The environmental crowd wouldn't like it.

TESTY CATHOLICS

Earlier this week I had a few things to say about the Vatican and their new list of sins. Accumulating excessive wealth? Give me a big-time break. Who defines what "excessive" is? Do you go to confession, tell a priest who has taken a vow of poverty how wealthy you are .. and then let him tell you whether or not you're a sinner?

Anyways ...... let's see, we have Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Catholics. Scientologists don't count. That's a cult. And who are the most thin-skinned out there? Slam dunk. Catholics. You should see the stack of childish "I'm never going to listen to you again" letters and emails I've been getting.

Maybe y'all ought to bring this up at confession the next time.

AND NOW FOR A SERIES OF MUSLIM OUTRAGES

The Prime Minister of Australia has created a Muslim advisory body that includes Muslim sports celebrities, academics and other important icons of the Muslim community. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd wants the government to improve the image of the Islamic community, claiming that they are not celebrated enough.

The Cleveland Heights-University Heights Government Library has decided to postpone a three-part series on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that was co-sponsored by CAIR. No surprise here, Jewish residents say the film "harshly criticizes Israeli settlements in the occupied territories and suggests a 'moral equivalency' between Palestinian and Israeli violence."

Oh we have an "offensive to Muslims" story! More than 170 pairs of athletic sneakers were seized by Algerian police after reports that the shoes were inscribed with the word "Allah" in Arabic. This, of course, is considered offensive to Muslims.

Al Qaeda supporters have their turbans in a wad because Afghanistan's Taliban is not radical enough. A flood of criticism on the Internet shows that extremists are upset that the Taliban is straying from the path of global jihad.

And in case you are curious, here are your marching orders on how to conduct "Media Jihad."

READING ASSIGNMENTS

Free Online FairTax Seminar! Still have questions about the FairTax? Take the online FairTax seminar given by Neal! It's free! Presented by Comcast High Speed Internet. Order FairTax:The Truth here Book Signings

In this video, Where's Pigfoot takes a look at John Murtha.

This Eliot Spitzer scandal just keeps growing and growing. By the way, tell me where in this story you find the word "Democrat." Did you know that some of the broadcast news networks have absolutely refused to identify Spitzer as a Democrat in their stories?

Newsbusters has a great wrap up on ABC's "Political Sex Scandals Redux" popup slideshow... and the fact that it is very quick to point out Republican scandals.

Are you ready for this? Government high school children in Scranton singing a rap for Hillary Clinton's victory ... complete with a very uncomfortable Hillary.

A bill in Colorado could mean that convicted child rapists would receive the death penalty. Currently many of them face life in prison.

Mike Adams has taken feminist "scholars" to task by mockingly suggesting that feminists should ban all capital letters because they are a reminder of ... well just read the article.

Southern Baptists leaders have decided that global warming is real and we aren't doing enough to stop it. No doubt, they will be included in the list of "scientists" who say that global warming is real.

Jewish community leaders in Germany called the head of Germany's national railway a Nazi because he decided to charge a transport fee to the organizers of a traveling exhibition in memory of Jewish children deported in the Holocaust. Hell .. in the U.S. you're a Nazi if you don't vote for Hillary!

There is now an investigation into who wrote "Long Live Palestine" in Arabic inside the cargo hold of an Israeli commercial airplane.

Here's a video on the number of Americans converting to Islam ... most of them happen to be women.

A cosmetics firm called Lush has created a "bath bomb" that dissolves in the bath as you soak. Only these bath bombs are orange to support the prisoners of Guantanamo Bay, and when they dissolve, a waterproof photo of an Arabic prisoner is found inside.

Great Britain has called a commission to find out why children are unhappy. So far the leading culprit is homework. Yeah ... they're unhappy because they're being asked to perform.

At least one out of every four teenage girls in this country has a sexually transmitted disease. They are probably smokers too.

A two-year-old boy in Great Britain has a rare condition that causes chronic high blood pressure, so he takes Viagra four times a day. Now because of government healthcare rationing, he may not be able to get his "treatment."

And speaking of pork, if you want to keep your blood pressure up, you can always visit the Citizens Against Government Waste website. They're the folks who put out the "pig book" every year. Oh look, they also have a blog.

Today's time waster, a gallery of pulp fiction paperback covers featuring lovely ladies sometimes scantily clad.

Since we've already got the Catholics angry, let's stoke the fire a bit by posting this classic bit from Monty Python.

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