Conservative Wanderer

“A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.” — Ronald Wilson Reagan

Where Your Tax Dollars Go

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) has released a report highlighting some of the worst pork barrel spending from 2008.

Lowlights include:

• $188,000 for Lobster Institute in Maine, home of the “LobsterCam”
• $1 million for bike paths on Louisiana levees while levees await basic repairs
• $2.4 million for a retractable shade canopy at a park in West Virginia
• $24.6 million for the National Park Service’s 100th year birthday in 2016 – 8 years early
• $3.2 million on a blimp the Pentagon does not want
• $367,000 wasted by a Texas school board on items like an inflatable alligator and under-the-sea waterslide, among other things
• $5 million for a bridge to a zoo parking lot in St. Louis
• $9,000 for a non-functioning airplane-shaped gas station in Tennessee
• $300,000 for specialty potatoes for high-end restaurants

This is just a sample of what your elected officials do with your tax dollars. Aren’t you glad that Obama plans to take even more dollars from you soon?

Category: Domestic Policy
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  • http://lookbooks.wordpress.com felicity12

    Specialty potatoes? Crazy times…

    • http://conservativewanderer.wordpress.com/ Conservative Wanderer

      Yeah, my family used to own restaurants (that’s where I learned to cook), and that one has me a bit puzzled too. Of course, ours were mostly family restaurants and steakhouses, not hoity-toity French bistros.

  • http://conservativewanderer.wordpress.com/ PhyCon

    Considering I know one of the outfits that comes up with some of these speciaties (they are in Gunnison, CO), I find most of the pork embedded in bills to be abominations of the House’s authority. I don’t remember who said it or even the exact quote, but, ‘when people realize they can vote money for themselves, a Democracy will die”. Pork, like that listed above, is a symptom of a greater disease. :(