Do you ever wonder where your federal taxes go, and why small-government Conservatives believe they should be reduced? Well, how about the Center for Grape Genetics at Cornell, in Geneva, NY? I'm all in favor of better American grapes, since I don't drink French wines as much as I used to, but shouldn't that sort of research be market-driven? Instead, $3 million of our tax dollars are paying for research into better hybrids and more disease-resistant grapes in NY, and another $3 million is going to fund the same sort of research at the Grape Genomics Research Center in Davis, CA. How about B.B. King? He's a talented musician, and he's probably a nice guy. But why are $1 million of our federal taxes going to the B.B. King Museum Foundation in Indianola, MS? Do all taxpayers at least get one free ticket to a show?

There's no reason the taxes of someone from Pennsylvania should be used for "sidewalks, street furniture and facade improvements" in Bakersfield, California. Frankly, I don't care what your town looks like. If I'm paying for anyone's new furniture, it'll be my own. If you live in Bakersfield, and you think the place needs fixing up, then it should be paid for with local or state taxes, if not private donations. Why is the US government spending $280,000 to take care of a local matter? This is precisely why we need to cut federal taxes even further. There's obviously no shortage of federal (meaning taxpayer) funds, as the Left would have us believe. The problem is how they're being spent, and the fact that Congress decided to raise the federal debt ceiling in order to spend more. A non-partisan group called Citizens Against Government Waste has identified $22.9 billion in pork barrel spending crammed into the $388 billion omnibus spending package recently passed by Congress. A partial state-by-state list of pork in the bill includes:

Alabama: $4 million for the International Fertiliser Development Center in Muscle Shoals.
Alaska: $443,000 to develop salmon-fortified baby food.
Arizona: $2.5 million for Lone Pine Dam Road.
California: $150,000 for the Girl Scouts Golden Valley Council bridge project.
Florida: $1 million for the Palm Coast Trail System in Flagler County.
Kentucky: $2.3 million for an animal waste management research laboratory in Bowling Green.
Hawaii: $4 million for mitigation of congestion in Kapolei City.
Illinois: $1.4 million for an Interstate-55 sound barrier in Darien.
Massachusetts: $1.2 million for Cape Cod Seashore Eastham/Dennis Bike Trail Repair.
Mississippi: $750,000 for the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.
Montana: $1.5 million for a "fuels-in-schools" biomass project.
North Carolina: $1 million for Garden Parkway in Gaston and Mecklenburg counties.
Ohio: $750,000 for the city of Circleville's sewer construction project; $350,000 for music education programs at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.
Oregon: $6.28 million to Oregon State University for wood utilisation research and $688,000 for a barley gene-mapping project.
Pennsylvania: $250,000 to promote tourism in the Allegheny National Forest area.
Tennessee: $2 million for the Fiery Gizzard Trail.
Vermont: $500,000 for a wood products program.
Virginia: $500,000 for the Amherst County River Walk Trail; $200,000 for a Vermont Civil War Monument in Virginia.
Washington: $1 million for the Enumclaw welcome center; $1 million for the Norwegian American Foundation.
Wisconsin: $3.2 million for the Chequamego-Nicolet National Forest "Wisconsin Wild Waterways."

Every politician from every state has a snout in the trough. Although Senator John McCain (R-AZ) derided the $1 million Wild American Shrimp Initiative as "this 'no shrimp left behind' act," Arizona still received a share of the slop (though usually smaller than most, thanks to McCain and fellow AZ Senator John Kyl). Even Guam is getting $515,000 for brown tree snake management. Politicians try to rationalise pork-barrel waste by saying that the tax dollars taken by the federal government are returned to the states for use, but they forget one thing: no one old enough to pay taxes was born yesterday. The US government is one big money-laundering scheme for special interest groups. Taxes flow in... and then they flow back out. Everyone along the route takes a bite. No party or politician is immune... not if they want to get campaign contributions come next election cycle.

There are a few ways to reduce both the wasteful spending and the influence of special interest groups. The simplest is to reduce the amount of money politicians can hand them... which means reducing the amount of spare money Congress has to waste in the first place. The loopholes and all that "wiggle room" politicians and special interests use to their advantage have to be removed from the Byzantine tax code. The sort of simplification President Bush is proposing would rob the lobbyists and special interests of their free ride, and would keep politicians from getting in bed with them to the extent they do now. Also, simpler tax codes would encourage economic growth and increase tax revenues, which would reduce that debt -- but only if spending is kept down. A lot of power is wielded by Congress, which can grant tax exemptions to certain groups as well as direct where our tax money is spent. Politicians use those powers to gain favorable press and publicity, which translate to votes. A way to curb the misuse of those powers would be to institute term limits for Representatives and Senators. Politicians who aren't constantly working on their next campaign might be able to spare some time to do the work they were put in office to do. Lobbyists can't make deals with politicians who won't be in office next year. The best way of all, of course, would be to keep an eye on how your Representative and Senators vote to spend your money, and vote them out when they waste it. Politicians count on our not paying attention, though... and they're usually right.