Well, at least the GOP-led House got something right this week and actually stood up for tax payers:

House pulls plug on Sandy aid bill ^[1]

Sure…a bill to help those affected by Hurricane Sandy sounds like a good thing. But Congress being the corrupt, hands-in-our-pockets creatures that they are just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stuff this bill full of un-related pork-barrel spending and kick backs to well-connected friends, cronies, and contributors.

The following are from the Twitter timeline of Ace of Spades HQ Blogger Gabriel Malor’s timeline this morning regarding some of that pork-barrel spending:

The Sandy relief package prepared by the Senate is a pork-laden monstrosity. There is no reason at all that it must be passed now.

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) January 2, 2013 ^[2]

The following bullets are all exact tweets from Gabriel, but I’ve put them in bullets for ease of reading:

• Cliff deal included wind energy tax credit expected to cost $12.1 billion this year.goo.gl/xg7FL ^[3]
• Sandy relief shouldn’t include fisheries in Alaska.
• Sandy relief shouldn’t include $5.3B to the Army Corps of Engineers (that’s more than their annual budget).
• Sandy relief shouldn’t include $56.8 million for charting the debris from last year’s Japanese tsunami.
• Sandy relief shouldn’t include $41 million for eight military bases including Guantanamo Bay.
• Sandy relief shouldn’t include $100 million for the federal Head Start day care program.
• Sandy relief shouldn’t include $188 million for new Amtrak lines (not repair, whole new lines).
• Sandy relief shouldn’t include $20 million for a nationwide “Water Resources Priorities Study”.
• Sandy relief shouldn’t include $4 million for the Kennedy Space Center. [Which is in Florida. Which was completely untouched or affected by Hurricane Sandy.
• Oh, btw, that Corps of Engineers Sandy funding? Obama Admin has it earmarked for addressing "impacts associated with a changing climate.”]

Gabriel goes on to admonish Rep. Pete King ^[4] (R-NY), who has threatened to “abandon the Republican Party” over the this bill.

If Rep. King wants to pass a clean bill, limited to actual Sandy relief programs, that would get my support.

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) January 2, 2013 ^[5]

But this pathetic attempt to buy votes with fisheries spending in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska should rightfully be DOA.

— Gabriel Malor (@gabrielmalor) January 2, 2013 ^[6]