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Pastimes : John F. Kennedy, Jr. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Akula who wrote (335)	9/24/1999 11:41:00 PM
From: Vendit™	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 440

Name some........be specific.........then we will discuss the king of liberals Robert Bird from Virginia.........the whole state is named after him and his pork as the rest of this nations pork spending has attached mainly by a wide margin, liberal after liberal-tax and spend dems name over their 60 plus years of taking this country down to where it is today........this is undeniable.

To: Akula who wrote (335)	9/25/1999 7:55:00 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 440

>>The government will never control society in this country as it necessarily reflects what most people want. Unadulterated blather. There you go again, proving once again your global illiteracy. The Constitution was designed to prevent the tyranny of the majority and insulating against the popular will is integral to that design. Most people are not well educated, like yourself, proving the genius of the design. >>Trent Lott's famous amphibious ship LOL. I'd like to see that!

To: Akula who wrote (335)	9/25/1999 12:32:00 PM
From: Vendit™	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 440

Robert Byrd. Democrat from West Virginia, former Senate Majority Leader (1977-80, 1987-88), Liberal congressman, and, supposedly, a fairly nice guy. West Virginia. Small. Mountainous. Underpopulated. Decreasing growth rate in population. Receives an enormous amount of federal development funds, including a few million dollars for the development of a park named Harper's Ferry, the site of an attempted slave revolt. There's a reason why Robert Byrd is called the King of Pork.………………. Pork: A Summary Byrd's Pork: Government Operations Byrd's Pork: Roads and Infrastructure As has been mentioned, West Virginia is a mountainous region filled with small towns scattered around the map. This presents the problem to the goal of building a quality transportation system. There are few cities of any note in West Virginia but plenty of small villages that house of few thousand people in isolated areas. Normally, one would expect roads in such an area to be in adequate condition, and one would also probably expect that some West Virginians may not be able to, because of the cost of building, live directly on a well-maintained roadway. However, not with Robert Byrd. Despite the fact that it costs nearly four times as much to build a mile long stretch of highway in mountainous West Virginia as it does in a flat state like, say, Wisconsin, an amazing amount of highway industry has taken place recently in West Virginia. Fully a third of the money for special grants for roads (presumably to repair roads that have suddenly become unusable) was taken by West Virginia in 1991, due to the actions of Byrd. This was a total of $140 million, with $33 million going "for the purpose of carrying out a demonstration of methods of eliminating traffic congestion" in Mingo County, which has been steadily decreasing in population since World War II, and would probably be thrilled to have a traffic problem. In a different section of the budget, $75 million went to fund the movement of a cul-de-sac on I-64 south of Charleston. In addition to roads, there is also a similar pork barreling effort that occurs with dams. West Virginians often live near rivers and these rivers, as many do, often flood. Byrd has tackled this by appropriating large amounts of money to protect residents. For the 4,000 citizens of Williamson, Byrd has build a 50 ft high steel and concrete wall that is part of abilliondollars worth of construction in the area involving flood control projects. Tens of millions of dollars were spent to transform New River Gorge from a flooding river into a white water rafting tourist attraction. In perhaps one of the most wasteful water control devices, Byrd appropriated $155 million dollars to build the Stonewall Jackson Dam, which even local Congressman Bob Wise felt was a bad idea. Byrd and the Line Item Veto With pork like this, its not hard to see why Robert Byrd has come out as a strong opponent of the line item veto. The line item veto, recently struck down as unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court by a 6-3 margin, allowed the President to strike individual lines, which would often be pork, from a bill. Byrd and a few other champions of pork were the primary individuals responsible for bringing the issue to the Supreme Court. Byrd was successful in his goal of reinstating a land where pork was freer and easier to obtain. sit.wisc.edu