Got Pork?

October 27, 1998 -- LOS ANGELES -- Despite the fact that The Doc is once again on the road, he has taken a few minutes to compile a list of his favorite examples of your tax dollars in action from the recently passed Federal budget. Check the list -- make sure that YOU got your slice of Federal largesse this year!

$12,600 to replace the waffle irons in the Congressional dining room.

$26,500 grant for improving the packaging of fly paper. Whose fly, we ask?

$64,000 for urban pest research in Georgia.

$84,425 printing allocation for posters to commemorate Bernard W. Trencher, the first settler of Muskegon Heights, Michigan.

$100,000 for Vidalia onion research in Georgia.

$112,350 for brass polish for Marine Corps Band servicing the White House. What ever happened to "spit and polish," we ask?

$220,000 for researchers in Maine to study low-bush blueberries.

$240,000 grant for development of a two-headed stethoscope. Yes, a two-headed stethoscope. How many two-headed doctors are out there?

$250,000 for a lettuce geneticist in Salinas, California.

$312,500 for a sculpture and tablet in memory of Princess Diana, to be erected in Lake Ozark, Missouri. How patriotic!

$425,000 to the Smithsonian to purchase the baseball hit by Babe Ruth as his 60th home run.

$520,000 grant to Tufts University to develop a program of retraining and healing of injuries related to ballet performers.

$615,000 for renovation of a skating rink in Plattsburg, New York.

$750,000 for grasshopper research in Alaska.

$770,000 grant to the College of the Pacific to study the effects of the 1994 devaluation of the Mexican peso and it's effect on the US ball bearing industry.

$800,000 to reconstruct the Pike's Peak Summit House in Colorado.

$836,000 travel and expense allocation for the Ormond Group to conduct a leprosy mission to India.

$1,100,000 for manure handling and disposal in Starkville, Mississippi. The Doc says this would have been better spent on handling and disposing the manure that comes out of the halls of Congress.

$1,200,000 for the "Mitch McConnell Conservation Fund" -- no doubt to conserve campaign contribution loopholes the National Senatorial Republican Campaign Committee so values as a part of the political landscape.

$1,200,000 to the Department of Agriculture to commence a feasibility study of commercial applications of peach seeds. hey -- aren't most peaches from... Georgia? Lotta pork goin' there so far... can Newt be far behind?

$1,500,000 to establish the Claiborne Pell Institute for International Relations.

$2,075,000 to establish The Skateboard Hall of Fame in Palo Alto, California. At least it sounds like more fun than the Pell Institute.

$3,000,000 allocation to the District of Columbia to promote a Miss District of Columbia Pageant in year 2000.

$4,850,000 grant to Booz, Allen & Hamilton, Inc. to study the possibility of setting up a central email system for rural Post Offices.

$5,000,000-plus to be divided among eight states to research the uses of wood. The Doc was tempted to say which states and whose wood -- but maybe he shouldn't go there...

$5,325,000 allocation to the National Institute of Health to study alcohol consumption on college campuses. Let me save them the time -- it's usually consumed orally, and frequently to excess.

$6,700,000 grant awarded to Medi-Care First Corp. to study the feasibility of reusable elastic stockings. No, The Doc is not making these up.

$7,200,000 refund of a fine paid by Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines in connection with their admission of dumping bunker oil at sea off the Florida coast.

$40,000,000 for "aviation support control" in the defense Department budget -- which turns out to be three Gulfstream executive jets to be built in the home district of Newt Gingrich.

$153,000,000 for a new federal courthouse in Brooklyn, New York.

$465,000,000 for seven new C-130 transport planes, also to be built in Gingrich's home district -- planes that the military has said over and over again that it doesn't want!

And finally, The Doc's favorite...

$3.5 BILLION to bail out Long-Term Capital Markets LP, a private hedge fund limited partnership based in Greenwich, Connecticut!

Hope y'all got yer heapin' helpin'! Bon appetit -- 'nuff said!

Dave "Doctor" Gonzo