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Doesn’t that just make you proud to have him as your representative. News flash for Ron Kind: We want a total ban on pork. Pork barrel legislation, or “earmarks,” is legalized campaign spending to benefit the incumbents, created by incumbents, for which opponents cannot claim.
Earmarks are added to bills by legislators, usually for the federal government to spend money for some local area (3rd District) for some project (river and harbor improvements, museums for railroads, bridges to nowhere, monument to mosquitoes, etc) to bring federal dollars into the local economy, and the legislator (Ron Kind) can thus claim, during election time, that people should vote for him, because he has proven his effectiveness as their elected official.
This pork or earmark is added to bills that are expected to be signed by the president, and forces him to either veto the entire bill, or accept the stinking, rotten pork. He usually accepts it.
If a legislator feels a local project is important, he should write the bill and have it go through the law-making process on its own merits and make it also subject to a presidential veto.
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