The war on pork

Rep. Jeff Flake, R-AZ, lives these days to fight federal pork spending. He's begun forcing up-or-down votes on some earmarked appropriations and highlighting them at his web site.

Well, the Club for Growth says that, after 19 of these votes, all 435 members of the House have made their positions known. I note that there are a lot more 0-for-19s (280 of them) than there are 19-for-19s (21), which is unfortunate. What I find interesting is the in-between, which is where my congressman, Tom Tancredo, lands.

And Tancredo, at 17-for-19, is barely in between. His score actually should be 17 for 18, because he didn't cast a vote on one of the earmarks. The earmark he voted in favor of was $1 million for an "ultra low emission locomotive" demonstration. In Pennsylvania. We're in Colorado.

That's weird. But if I had to guess, I'd say his reasoning goes like this: Denver has pollution problems; lots of diesel trains run through Denver and are switched here; the ULEL would help with pollution.

So I can see it being a rational vote. But still -- seems like CSX or some rail consortium ought to fund this out of the R&D budget. We're talking a million bucks here. CSX's 2005 net income was $1.1 billion.

The ULEL has a better claim to taxpayer money, I think, than swimming pools in California or aquariums in Connecticut. But is there a vital need here? I don't see it.

*****A further thought.