Friday, January 05, 2007

100 Hour Countdown: Pork on the Chopping Block

The US House takes up a plan Friday to ban "earmarks" -- the practice of inserting anonymous pet projects in spending bills. The idea is to send federal money back to the home district in an attempt to buy votes -- or benefit a lobbyist or special interest. The whole process is called "pork barrel spending."

Congress slipped in $71.77 billion for 15,832 earmarks last year. (Bloomberg via Yahoo!)

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