The Maine Pork Barrel Busters

Instapundit and the NZ Bear are urging bloggers to highlight pork barrel spending from our home states - and suggest to our congressional leaders to cut this waste from federal appropriations in order to fund the Hurricane Katrina reconstruction.

How are we going to mobilize the blogosphere in support of cuts in wasteful spending to support Katrina relief? Here's the plan.

Identify some wasteful spending in your state or (even better) Congressional District. Put up a blog post on it. Go to N.Z. Bear's new PorkBusters page and list the pork, and add a link to your post.

Then call your Senators and Representative and ask them if they're willing to support having that program cut or -- failing that -- what else they're willing to cut in order to fund Katrina relief. (Be polite, identify yourself as a local blogger and let them know you're going to post the response on your blog). Post the results. Then go back to NZ Bear's page and post a link to your followup blog post.

The result should be a pretty good resource of dubious spending, and Congressional comments thereon, for review by blogs, members of the media, etc. And maybe even members of Congress looking for wasteful spending . . . .

Here is a quick list of federal funds being wasted in my home state of Maine.

- $4,000,000 for a multi-use trail and snowmobile accommodations for the Route 116 Bridge in Medway
- $3,000,000 for the replacement of the Route 201-A "covered" bridge in Norridgewock
- $2,800,000 for bicycle trails, "amenities," and "traffic circulation" improvements in Bangor
- $1,000,000 for a bicycle and pedestrian bridge over the Stillwater River in Orono
- $500,000 for bike and pedestrian trails in Katahdin
- $250,800 to purchase new buses to improve the commute to Jackson Labs in Bar Harbor
- $250,000 for construction the Great Falls Parking Garage in Auburn
- $220,000 to the Blueberry Hill Farm in Jonesboro for renovations
- $97,000 Franco-American Heritage Center in Lewiston

TOTAL = 12,117,800

I am sure there is more waste - if you know of any, please contact me.

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