Whats the BEEF about PORK

[ltmdepas3280 1]

I have been watching the new's reports and reading blogs and everyone is talking about pork barrel spending....it's mostly coming from the republicans. My question is what do we in the fire service consider pork...Training, manpower, education ,equipment.....what should we stop spending on. You hear it on these boards "we have to cut the pork in Albany" all the time ...yet no one here can tell me what pork is.

[IzzyEng4 427]

I have been watching the new's reports and reading blogs and everyone is talking about pork barrel spending....it's mostly coming from the republicans. My question is what do we in the fire service consider pork...Training, manpower, education ,equipment.....what should we stop spending on. You hear it on these boards "we have to cut the pork in Albany" all the time ...yet no one here can tell me what pork is.

In the figurative language obviously "Pork" is considered "fat" or in plain English overspending on line items that are not needed or spending that is viewed excessive on a fiscal spending view.

Now we can take that as a wide variety of things from overtime costs to simple purchasing too much unneeded equipment at one time. Trying to just focus on using that term on teh fire department level can be a great debate among a lot of people, mainly us who service in the fire service who beleive if you by a tool and use it only once its worth its weight in gold versus the politicians who many view that as wasteful spending.

The worse thing is though you have people using terms like this and actually don't really know the true context of the word of phrase being used and try to pin it on everything.

[jfmuller 23]

I believe when they refer to PORK they refer to "pet projects" that each politician places into a bill to get appropriations.

http://php.democratandchronicle.com/RocDocs/pork_08/

Feel free to look through that link it allows you to bring up your favorite politician to see what they got and where the money went.

Did you forget the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska already?

As for the Fire Service, the Fire Grants is a much better program to feel out need and divvy up money as opposed to Pork which is divided up along political lines.

[ny10570 745]

Most "pork" is more about the appropriateness of the item rather than the need for the item. The recent Democrat stimulus package is an excellent example. Many items added that while important, and not necessary for the purpose of the bill. Firefighter training funding is pork as soon as its added to a healthcare or economic stimulus package.