Iowa Caucuses Today!

[A Black Falcon]

"Pork-barrel spending" and all that stuff McCain constantly rails on against, you mean? Honestly, for the most part I don't think that there's much of a problem. It's only "pork" if you don't live there... but when it's projects YOUR congressperson is getting for YOUR district, it's well-spent government money, of course!

Oh come on, that's ridiculous. Either it's bad or it's good, and I think it's mostly good. Sure, the process should be more open -- it's not right that congresspeople can add things without any requirement for oversight, without their name being attached to the requisition in many cases, and with the bill passed without knowing what's actually in it. I know that with the length of bills it's impossible to read everything, but even so, more disclosure would be good. But stopping "pork" entirely. I don't think that that is a good goal.

On the other hand, the problem with our current system is that there are so many issues to be dealt with that it's utterly impossible to find the candidate that supports everything you want them to. So, cut out all the ambiguity and let each person decide what they want for themselves. Just take the money you would have spent on taxes and pass along a donation to NASA, or a university research institute working on curing diabetes, or whatever.

Not enough people would do that to provide enough funding.