Posted 4:41 PM by steve

As much as I enjoy reading through the blogosphere and as much as I get a kick that there are (some, never enough) people who actually are interested in some of the things I have to say, I'm afraid some of my blogging colleagues are suffering from a severe case of delusional thinking'...

Evidence of the latest outbreak of this disease can be found in Porkbusters, the mostly-conservative blog-inspired campaign to demand that Congress cut federal spending (specifically, to pay for Katrina related spending, but generally, as a protest against the rise in federal spending).

Unfortunately for those who sympathize with the goals of this campaign, the blogosphere can huff and they can puff but they'll never be able to blow the bridge down. And there's one simple reason for this: too few people in Congress think there is anything wrong with pork barrel spending, and the few who care are not in positions where they can do anything about it.

The fact is that EVERY SINGLE appropriation of so-called pork is in the budget because somebody in Congress considers it a building block towards their re-election. Think about it: what other reason does a Member of Congress have for doing anything?

And no amount of complaining from the outside is going to cause Congress to change their approach to getting themselves re-elected. Notwithstanding the blogosphere's lofty opinion of its ability to effect change, Congress ain't going to jump just because a bunch of mostly white, conservative geeks who have too much time on their hands tells them to.

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