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Thanks for the answer.

Liberty wrote:I think of pork as grants for projects which have no national interest. When we build bridges that only serve local uninhabitated islands or art projects or other local projects thats pork.

Supporting Coast guard stations, Federal prisons and Federal navigable waterways isn't pork. You don't see pet projects in Galveston Brazoria that are just raw grants to benefit walthy supporters

That seems like a reasonable definition. So the question is, when Ron Paul brings that kind of money (not pork) to his district, does he take credit for it, or does he continue to gripe about the pork?

seamusTX wrote:I don't want to drag out this discussion forever, but I do respect Dr. Paul for the most part. I voted for him three times this year.

Pork is what you call the money that goes to someone else's district.

The taxpayers of Galveston and Brazoria counties deserve to get some return on the money that they send to Washington.

Thanks for the candid reply. The thing is, it is very difficult for me to take someone's declamations against pork barrel spending very seriously if the person making those declamations isn't above getting some of his own pork. Mind you, I'm not personally against the idea of pork, as long as one can make a legitimate argument for it's necessity, and which need wouldn't be better served through some other channel. The extent to which Ron Paul is guilty of making such declamations, is exactly the extent to which I think of him as no more and no less a charlatan as any other professional politician. That was my point.

Most of the discretionary federal funds that come here are for coastal issues like the Coast Guard, NOAA, and the Army Corps of Engineers (which is the only agency allowed to perform work on navigable waterways), and the interstate highways.

Then it sounds like most of that money is being better spent than on some bridge to nowhere. But if that's the case, then wouldn't you agree that Ron Paul should just go ahead and put his name on such legislation and take proper credit for it instead of ranting against pork like he does, but taking its benefits on the sly?

BTW, there's only one interstate in the district, and Jack Brooks put it there 40 years ago.

If an interstate down there is a necessary thing (I've not been a Texas resident long enough to know much of anything about your particular area), then it isn't really pork, is it? In my mind, it becomes "pork" when it serves no other purpose but to unnecessarily fatten up your district at the expense of taxpayers in other districts. That's why Ted Stevens' "bridge to nowhere" was so offensive. It was completely unnecessary. However, if your district has sufficient commerce, and insufficient roads for getting that commerce to market, then one can make a well-reasoned argument for why it would be necessary to bring in a section of interstate highway, regardless of who the serving congressman is at the time.

I don't know whether or how Dr. Paul gets line items into the budget. The House of Representatives has been controlled by the Democrats for several years now.

My guess is that he gets it done the same way the Republican minority gets it done - quid pro quo. Lots of bills are passed by Congress that don't really concern major policy issues. So it is easy for members of one party to support a bill sponsored by the other party in the name of "bipartisanship" when it doesn't concern gun rights, abortion, the war in Iraq/Afghanistan, etc. "Sure, I'll vote to renovate the sewage treatment plant in your district, if you'll vote to get an Interstate Highway extension into mine." Quid pro quo. I'll bet dollars to donuts that's how Ron Paul gets it done, only he gets both the benefit of railing against Democrat/Republican pork while also bringing that pork to his district.

Please understand that I don't write this to slam him, but Ron Paul isn't ideologically pure either. He apparently has had a record in the past of voting against bills which are pork laden, when A) those bills are going to pass handily anyway; and B) when some of that pork is for his district. That way, he can claim ideological purity, and bring home the bacon at the same time. At least, that is what I've read. So if what I've read is true, then how did pork for Paul's district get onto the bill in the first place? Certainly John Murtha didn't put it there. And if Paul has actually done such a thing, then doesn't that make him appear a bit cynical about his own anti-pork stance? That sort of hypocrisy is what made me initially suspicious about him.

The other main thing that I haven't been able to swallow about Ron Paul was his refusal to return donations made by white supremacists. Now, I'm not dumb enough to believe that Ron Paul is himself a white supremacist. In fact, I'm fairly certain that he is not. However, he is willing to accept their money. In my view, that is dirty money. One of the big strikes against Obama is that his campaign has been less than fastidious in keeping their financial donation records. Also in my view, it is extremely difficult for any well-meaning politician to convince other people who haven't signed on yet to supporting him that his heart is in the right place when he accepts money from people whose hearts are definitely in the wrong place. It was unwise and ill-advised on Ron Paul's part to accept that money in the first place, and it was foolish and politically tone deaf for him to hang onto it once it became public knowledge. In my mind, a politician doesn't have to actually be a white supremacist in order to be tainted by failing to repudiate white supremacist money.

I could never vote for a politician who isn't wise enough to understand that distinction, and then do the right thing about it. But that's just me.

If those of you who are Paul's supporters can set me straight on those two issues, then I might be able to change my opinion of him as a crackpot, even if I can't agree with all of his policies.