Word: pork
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...last week, government officials admitted that they had "underestimated the complexity" of the overhaul and pleaded for restoration of millions of dollars that Congress might cut from the Weather Service's budget. Congress members have not only balked at the soaring cost of the program, but have also raised pork-barrel concerns about plans to reduce the number of NWS offices around the country from 249 to 115 -- a reduction made possible by the greater power of the new technology. "It's a minor version of the military-base closings," says one NWS official...
...alligator food, which I had never tasted before--even 'gator' burgers," Buxeda says. "It's pretty good--something like a cross between pork and chicken...
...pork, however, comes wrapped in a khaki uniform. The federal budget is larded with highly questionable nonmilitary projects that receive lavish funding while more urgent national needs like fighting infant mortality and improving education are strapped for cash. None of the individual programs is large enough to worsen the $318 billion deficit significantly. But lumped together, the plethora of porcine projects adds huge sums to federal outlays. Freshman Republican Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire has been combing the budget for examples of nondefense pork, specifically projects that were never voted or debated but somehow were slipped into appropriations bills...
...phase out or scale down in order to save $850 million. Angry lawmakers protested that the closings would cause irreparable economic harm to their districts and vowed to thwart them. But since none of the bases is considered essential to national defense, they fall into the category of pork: dubious spending programs that Congressmen support to curry favor with the folks back home...
...governments? That question baffles Neal Smith. "Are you for tree planting or not?" he asks, with some exasperation. "This project is in everyone's interest. Grants go to all the states, not just Iowa. It's a conservation and beautification program that is very much worthwhile. I always thought 'pork' was what went to somebody else's district...