Sponsor Criticized by Newspaper

[artdutra04]

Originally Posted by EricH

And it isn't "pork" because it benefits a lot of schools in a lot of districts. ("Pork" typically refers to very specific grants to a small group of people, especially in the wrong type of bill or in a very limited area.)

You'd be amazed at what most people consider "pork", as long as it's outside of their own congressional district.

There are millions of people who hate seeing the government spend billions on "pork projects"; however, if those projects are for things in their own community they welcome them with open arms.

As such, allocating $100,000 for a FIRST Regional can almost definitively be considered "pork". It's money that is going to a small audience (to the benefit of several thousand high school students) with a very specific scope (robotics competition). It's no different than the "pork" projects where a local municipality gets a $1,000,000 grant to build a paved bike trail or playground or to buy new school textbooks or whatever.

Now while I am most definitely for having the government help fund FIRST teams or events, I'm just cautioning everyone that just because something is "pork", doesn't automatically mean it's bad and should be vetoed and slashed from the budget. There are just as many legitimate pork projects as there are wasteful pork projects. The key thing is being responsible by knowing there is only so much money to go around, and that some legitimate pork projects may have to wait a while before they can get federal/state grants.

Which is why I have no problem with a newspaper (or any other individual or corporation) looking into the sources and organizations where politicians are pushing for pork projects. Having a higher government transparency will only help get more federal monies for good and well-meaning pork projects (of which I'm sure FIRST-related projects would generally end up here), while exposing all the sketchy pork projects to the newspapers, independent committee, and general public.