Word: pork-barrel
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...leaked. It praised some members of Congress for placing the national interest above their home-district concerns (Democratic Representatives Les Aspin of Wisconsin and Patricia Schroeder of Colorado and Republican Congressman Silvio Conte of Massachusetts). It also noted candidly that some of the best-known legislators had dipped into pork-barrel politics. Among them: Democratic Presidential Candidate Ernest Hollings and Republican Senator Strom Thurmond, both of South Carolina (for fighting to keep Fort Jackson, near Columbia, open); Republican Senator Robert Dole of Kansas (for preventing the closing of a Housing and Urban Development Department office in Topeka); Senate Minority Leader...
...state capital of Charleston, Democratic Governor Jay Rockefeller had proposed a modest jobs program to the state legislature, which the lawmakers, unable to reach an agreement on, tabled before they recessed in mid-March. And he is earmarking $10 million, which he saved by slashing pork-barrel projects from the state budget, for jobs. Such action would come none too soon for towns like Gary that are hanging on by a string of hope. Nearly half of Gary's municipal employees have been laid off and the rest have been reduced to four-day work weeks...
...October. The members bungled that task, the result being that 80% of the Government's funding needs had to be lumped once again into a catch-all piece of legislation called a continuing resolution. They did better when it came to granting themselves a pay raise and grabbing pork-barrel goodies (see box). Said Oklahoma Democrat James Jones, chairman of the House Budget Committee: "This lameduck session was not our finest hour...
...committee agreed to jettison a "jobs bill" that both chambers had attached to the measure. The Democratic House had voted $5.4 billion for the program, and the Republican Senate had approved a $1.2 billion figure. But Reagan, with much justification, argued that both versions were motley collections of local pork-barrel projects masquerading as jobs programs. He threatened to veto the entire continuing resolution, an act that would have shut down much of the Federal government last week, unless the job amendments were scuttled...
...session bills traditional targets for pork-barrel amendments? "They're the last trains out of the station," explained Massachusetts Congressman James Shannon. Normal debate and decorum were all but abandoned. Some of the Senate amendments to the omnibus spending bill were handwritten. Even after the Senate voted on the amendments, few members knew what action had been taken. When the final 300-page spending bill emerged from the House and Senate conference committee, pasted together and hastily photocopied only 35 copies were circulated to the 435 House members voting on the measure Not that it mattered...