Republican Politicians Snag The Most Pork
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-spending-idUSN0233511020080402
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/lists/senator_earmarks/
Thanks for sending Hobson's rationale for his opposition to MOX.
I am increasingly convinced that conservatives are fundamentally afraid of change and live in a state of ceaseless self-terrorization, contemplating how change might unsettle their too-settled lives.
For example, Traditionalist Catholics - http://paxonbothhouses.
Never mind that until 1750 half of human beings died by age 8, and that humankind endured toothache for half its life as recently as 1850. (Just ask George Washington: http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/12/colonial-dentistry-and-george.html)
Never mind that until 1750 half of human beings died by age 8, and that humankind endured toothache for half its life as recently as 1850. (Just ask George Washington: http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/12/colonial-dentistry-and-george.html)
It is devilishly easy to gloss the past with an attractive patina of bygone Golden Age grandeur.
Given that change is inevitable (while also acknowledging that change for its own sake is often a bad thing) reflexive opposition to change represents hostility to Reality itself.
"Are Republicans Insane?" Best Pax Posts
"There Are Two Ways Of Lying..." Denis De Rougemont And Donald Trump
http://paxonbothhouses.
"The Danger Of Science Denial"
TED Talk by Michael Specter
"There Are Two Ways Of Lying..." Denis De Rougemont And Donald Trump
http://paxonbothhouses.
"The Danger Of Science Denial"
TED Talk by Michael Specter
It is, of course, possible that the particular "piece of pork" that Hobson has in his cross-hairs is a boondoggle. After all, the project is located in South Carolina, a blood-red state prone to the broad-spectrum bullshit that besets all dyed-in-the-wool red states.
"Red State Moocher Links"
The Elimination Of Earmarks And Lily-White Gerrymandering Killed Compromise
In fact, political pork - within reasonable limits - is a good thing and only the Republican noise machine would have us believe otherwise.
Just as the healthy human body must contain 5% to 7% fat, so too The Body Politic requires a sizable admixture of pork-fat. (To glimpse what happens when all fat is eliminated from any system, visit Google Images and key-word-search "anorexia," first turning off your "safe filter.")
In the absence of pork, political absolutists want The Whole Pig.
To the extent that absolutists feel politically unassailable (as they do in lily-white, gerrymandered districts), there is no motivation to "play well with others."
What remains is overwhelming motivation to satisfy the rabid demands of whatever neo-puritanical "demographic" invests one with power.
It bears mention that the elimination of pork - coupled with the gerrymandering of Aryan-white voting districts - are textbook illustrations of Common Sense as nonsense.
Be careful what you wish for.
Be doubly cautious when your desires are based solely on Common Sense to the exclusion of paradox, irony and Uncommon Sense.
Paz contigo
Alan
This is a story about the biggest, baddest earmark of all time
by David Hobson R-OH
It all began with good intentions. Back in 2000, the US and Russia agreed to dispose of 34 metric tons of plutonium. The US decided to build a facility to convert the weapons-grade material into fuel for commercial nuclear reactors. The plant, located in South Carolina, was called the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility (MOX), and was expected to be completed within three years and cost $1.6 billion.
Fast forward to today and the facility still has not been finished. The Department of Energy has sunk $4.5 billion into construction alone and estimates for finishing the job range between $25 billion and a staggering $114 billion. Not only is the project more than one-thousand percent over cost and years behind schedule, the MOX facility lacks even a single U.S. utility customer for its commercial reactor fuel.
It is the very definition of a boondoggle.
As former Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Subcommittee, and as a conservative, it was my duty to spend taxpayer dollars on projects that move our country forward. I worked to advance defense research and development at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and improve management practices at the Department of Energy.
But when I raised concerns about the MOX facility during hearings a dozen years ago and tried to stop the project, I was met with resistance by the Energy Department, the Bush Administration, and many of my fellow Republicans. They told me canceling the project would hurt then-South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s chances of being reelected, and would damage our relations with Russia.
Thirteen years later, everything I was afraid of happening is now unfolding. The project was never about good policy - just politics.
My biggest regret from my time in Congress is not finding a way to thwart the project.
Beyond the exorbitant price tag, the MOX facility also suffers from alarming safety and security problems, according to watchdog groups like the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and Taxpayers for Common Sense.
They discovered, for example, that the contractor in charge of the project was granted an exemption from an important security standard before construction of the facility began. Places like MOX must be able to verify the location of all special nuclear materials within 72 hours. The logic is straightforward: if a terrorist claims to have stolen nuclear material from a facility like MOX, it is essential to be able to verify or disprove such a claim as soon as possible.
Instead of 72 hours, the MOX contractor estimates it could take 180 days (!) to physically verify the presence of all nuclear materials—60 times the safety requirement.
It should be acknowledged that the US can continue to uphold its agreement with Russia without the MOX facility. The Department of Energy has identified several alternative strategies to dispose of the plutonium that have been independently verified to be more cost effective, timely, and safer. We also should question the current status of our relationship with Russia, and the progress being made on their side of the plutonium disposal agreement.
Now that my party is in control of both chambers of Congress, we should demonstrate to the American people that we are, in fact, champions of fiscal restraint and willing to cut wasteful spending.
I implore my successors in Congress to put an end to the wasteful MOX facility once and for all.
David Hobson is a former Republican Congressman from Ohio and former Chairman and Ranking Member of the House
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