Porky the Pig Goes to Congress

I tried paying my taxes with a smile…they wanted money.

Tomorrow is April 15 – Tax Day – and a great day to start thinking about how the government is spending all of the hard-earned money they have taken from you throughout the year. While government serves a necessary function in our society, and incurs some reasonable costs in the process, the amount of money spent by the federal government on pork barrel projects is astronomical. Citizens Against Government Waste provides a complete list of the nearly 14,000 projects that contribute to our nation's $427 billion budget deficit, including such important ventures as $2 million for the buyback of the USS Sequoia Presidential Yacht, $400,000 for educational outreach for the Washington Opera, and $100,000 for the Tiger Woods Foundation.

Whether or not you think these are legitimate uses of your tax dollars, the fact remains that bloated spending by the federal government is steadily increasing, even under a Republican Congress (up 19% from fiscal year 2004 and a total increase of 21% since fiscal year 2003, acccording to CAGW). This should be of great concern to the citizens of this country, for what goes into these programs must come out of our pockets. Increasing dependency on government equals increasing bondage for citizens. Limited government was one of the fundamental principles that our government was founded on, and uncontrolled spending is a threat to the freedom and autonomy that we enjoy as Americans.