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McCain: Congress Addicted to 'Pork'
The morning after President Bush declared that the United States is "addicted to oil,” Sen. John McCain said legislators in Washington are suffering from another addiction – to pork. Talking with popular radio talk show host Don Imus on Wednesday morning, the Arizona Republican said: "Pork barrel spending has driven me crazy. "We’ve got a sickness here in the nation’s capital. And it’s called not addiction to oil, [but] addiction to pork. And we’ve got to fix it. And if it doesn’t get fixed, we’re doing, obviously, terrible things to future generations of Americans.” McCain cited a $3 million expenditure several years ago to study the DNA of bears in Montana and said: "I don’t know if that’s a paternity issue or a criminal issue. But ... it just goes on and on. It’s become an epidemic.”
Story Continues Below "Back in 1984 Ronald Reagan vetoed a highway bill that had 152 of these earmarked pork barrel projects in it. He said, I haven’t seen so much pork since I gave out blue ribbons at the Iowa State Fair.” McCain complained that the highway bill approved by President Bush had 16,140 earmarks – special projects that members of Congress insert into larger spending bills, including the infamous $328 million "bridge to nowhere” in Alaska. Said McCain: "If we’re going to have to make other sacrifices to fix Social Security and Medicare, how can we continue this obscene practice of earmarking? "And then what happens, then you get people who become corrupted by it, like this guy, Duke Cunningham.”
Rep. Randy "Duke” Cunningham, a California Republican, pleaded guilty in November to accepting nearly $2 million in graft in return for political favors.
McCain also called Iran "the greatest threat we face” since the end of the Cold War, and agreed with Imus that Iran is being run by "crazy people.”
Editor's note:
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