(2006-02-24) Defense Pork

Winslow Wheeler: With 2,966 examples costing about $11.1 billion, the Pork Barrel in the 2006 Department Of Defense Appropriations Bill, now law, is not hard to find.

So, if you think "pork" in defense bills is stupid stuff that members of US Congress stuff down the unwilling throat of the Defense Department, you'd be quite wrong. It's worse than that; "pork" is unevaluated spending that Congress approves for its own membership on a bipartisan basis with the acquiescence of unnamed bureaucrats in the Pentagon. It is literally a step into the known in regards to cost, quality, and need.