Feeling Decoupled? Back to PorkBall Series

I am still decoupled based on KS GOV April 17 decoupling recommendation tanamount to Kansas becoming its own country based on a recommendation by Kate. And equally disappointed her Senate hearing was not shown on C-Span Comedy Channel yesterday because it was not important enough.

I did however endure listening to Treasury Tim give reassurances and puffery related to how our entire domestic financial industry basically being in the crapper and can only be saved by private/government investments in purchasing their too big to fail increasing toxic or non-performing assets.

I merely wonder if I can buy Bank of America's 25 billion in non-performing assets for about six bucks. And then after doing this original post, he is now on CNBC talking about 3-4 trillion in global toxic assets which makes me think "should I rush to my bank now?" Thanks Treasury Tim for the banking collapse anxiety again. Not to mention on April 29, based on real GDP, the US will move from recession to a depression. But quoting Afred E. Neuman wisdom, "what me worry?"

Regardless, back to our PorkBall series with year-to-year performance data without bias for awarding another pork ball to the winner based on year-to-year bacon improvement. So first, the data in millions and then the pork ball award. Plus I am sticking in known Senate pork. Data for FY 09 is reported at http://www.congress.org/ for both. FY2010 data is compiled from each congressional web site and as noted previously in prior posts, arrogant KS Senators do not want to inform us yet, of their FY 2010 pork.

Senator FY09 bacon:

Brownback 87.1 on 79 earmarks
Roberts 53.6 on 47 earmarks

Senate Bacon 140.7 million on 126 earmarks for FY09:

Congressman:

Moran 8 million on 19 earmarks (FY09), 32 million on 30 earmarks, 398%
Boyda/Jenkins 38 on 49 earmarks, 68 millon on 21 earmarks, 178%
Moore 7 on 24 earmarks, 151 million on 52 earmarks, 2054% increase
Tiahrt 69 on 19 earmarks, 101 million on 41 earmarks, 152% increase.

HR Bacon 120 million on 111 earmarks (FY09)
352 million on 144 earmarks. (FY2010).
293% increase in total congressional bacon.
(Some rounding due to inability to master blog word wrapping).

Clearly, Moore wins another porkball on total bacon pieces and on a percentage basis. Now analyzing this data makes me realize how difficult it is to post spreadsheet data in a tabular format in a simple blog. Especially when doing edits of the original post because I lost a crapload of formatting when I posted, requiring a lot of post-edit fixing.

Second, other than the obvious lack of fiscal conservatism when the economy is tanking, it is interesting to note that total pieces of bacon (earmarks) and the amount of bacon (dollars) should make more pork recipients happier and all taxpayers less happy.

Third, in FY09, some of the congressman were worried about being called porkers due to the election cycle. For example, this year's pork king was basically afraid of voter pork backlash during an election cycle. (Moore came in last place in FY09).

Tiahrt was pork king for FY09 last year. Over the last two years, Tiahrt is top pork king for the two years combined with a total of 168 million barely beating Moore's two year total of 158.6 million. Moore merely caught up with his whopping 2054% increase in pork in FY2010; despite how he insists he is Blue Dog Democrat Co-Chair. Way to lead the blue dogs. Now during an election cycle in a hotly contested race, party leadership swings a lot of pork to a particular congressman like Boyda in order to look great back home. DNC , KS Dem Party and Boyda Plan failed.

Fourth, if I lived in Moran's 1st district, I would either have to love him for being a fiscal conservative ; or really be upset by his only bringing home the bacon of a pitiful two-year total of 40 million. But as previously noted, Moran got 1/2 pork ball for giving 53% to municipal pork.

Fifth, when reviewing pork, it is important to ascertain how KS ranks in slapping down the bacon based on the overall population of the state in relation to other states. Pork is a return of some of the federal taxes paid by Kansans. So, we should be certain KS is getting a proportionate share of pork from all these yahoo politicians. Overall, we are not. Meaning some other state(s) like Alaska are getting some of KS's share of the federal bacon based on population attributed to all KS politicians not asking and ensuring our state gets a proportional amount of pork.

To briefly summarize, if you like pork, our politicians are under performing in bringing home the bacon proportional to our state population. On the other hand, if are a fiscal conservative, our politicians are doing better than other state's federal porkers.

So based on FY 2010 data, let's give Moore another ball of pork. And also give Tiahrt a pork ball for his 2 year accumulative total and King of Pork based on two-year data.

Finally, I have a few more posts related to this porkballing series. I am getting weary of compiling and analyzing data; but this is important enough that it seems worth the substantial effort. And for all practical purposes, demonstrates why blogs are a lot better than the local media when it comes to compiling and reporting original data. In particular, the Crappy Red Star.

Next Porkball Post: I still want to post some details related to state pork including the tremendous amount of pork going to community colleges and state universities. How this kind of pork is somehow related to funding the federal government even by a fuzzy nexus remains a mystery to me.

I also may do a drill down into the 3rd District pork based on distribution in the 3 county area. I want to understand why JOCO gets so much and the other two counties in the congressional district are basically getting de minimis bacon.