Asman: Pork Proves to Be Non-Partisan

We can't keep blaming the other guys. If we're serious about fighting big government, we have to realize that this fight is non-partisan.

Blaming just one side or the other is what they do inside the Beltway. Outside the Beltway, we have to recognize that politicians from all parties give in to the temptation of spending other people's money to please a small group that'll help them get re-elected. It's true that we just had a revolutionary election in which voters rebelled against the status quo.

We elected a bunch of new folks committed to cutting government down to size. But if you look at the deals being cut right now, it shows that you can't leave these guys alone in a room.

Scoreboard's doing the best we can to expose these deals, because the money for them is coming out of our pockets.

Just look at the tax deal now being finalized. As important as it is to stop any tax hike in a jobs recession, we're adding on billions in spending...and these add-ons are not just coming from Democrats.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley from Iowa is using the tax bill to slip billions more of your money into subsidies and tax credits for ethanol. And there's virtually no rational excuse for ethanol subsidies. They cause price spikes in corn, which leads to inflation for other food products that rely on corn. Environmentalists aren’t so keen on ethanol, either, because so much energy and water are needed to make it. Some scientists argue that it takes more energy to create ethanol than is saved by using it. Mechanics also complain that ethanol mucks up engines. But the corn growing lobby loves it, which is why Sen. Grassley's still pushing it. His political career has always been secured by pleasing the ethanol lobby in his state.

The same is true for incoming House Ways & Means Chairman Dave Camp, a Republican from Michigan.

And the incoming chairman of the House Appropriations Committee is Kentucky Republican Hal Rogers, whose pork spending rivals that of any Democrat in Congress. For years now, Scoreboard has recommended that Jeff Flake, or some other principled anti-porker be put on Appropriations.

Instead, Republican leader John Boehner has been appointing porkers to that committee. Well finally, Mr. Boehner has put Jeff Flake on Appropriations. But with a porker leading the Appropriations Committee, how much of an impact can Mr. Flake have? This is a Congress that Tea Partiers are going to have to be watching very carefully over the next couple of years.