Why do you trivialize the ”Porkbusters” bill that would end funding for pork-barrel projects irrelevant to everything but the local congressman`s or senator`s re-election? (DuPage section, June 19; main section, June 17) Your reporting on it deals primarily with possible back-biting among Illinois congressmen.
Last fall`s budget summit agreement means that federal spending is a zero-sum game. If you add a dollar for Item X, you have to subtract a dollar from somewhere else (or raise taxes, and that simply isn`t going to happen).
The ”Porkbusters” bill, which we helped draft, would defund pork-barrel projects estimated to cost the taxpayers of America $1.06 billion. Our bill would free up that amount for real needs, for deficit reduction or a combination of the two.
That amount is a year of preventive health care (immunizations and physical and dental checkups) for more than 3.5 million kids. It`s a year of Head Start for 338,395 preschool, at-risk children. It`s more than 700 million lunches for schoolchildren from impoverished homes. It`s maximum Pell Grants for 445,685 youngsters to attend college.
Instead of trivializing our bill or the congressmen-like Harris Fawell and Dennis Hastert-who are fighting for it, you ought to be asking the other members of the Illinois delegation where their priorities are.
