The Other King of Pork -- AR Representative Marion Berry

by Andrew Roth: Congressman Marion Berry (D-AR) promises more pork barrel spending now that the Democrats are in charge of Congress. This is no surprise. Last year, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette wrote, "Arkansas’ Rep. Marion Berry would like to be known as the king of pork. “Nothing would please me more,” he says."

Berry addressed a local group and started talking about earmarks. Here's the key series of quotes, as reported by Dewitt Era-Enterprise reporter Frank Scott:

• “I think that by the time [the appropriation bills] get on his desk he [Bush] will be so slap-happy that he will sign it,” Berry said.
• In answer to a question from Arkansas County Judge Glenn “Sonny” Cox, Berry said that he had put a request for $4 million for an overpass over the railroad tracks on Park Street (U.S. 165) in Stuttgart in the budget.
• Berry also used the opportunity to define “earmarks,” projects put into the budget by representatives and senators to benefit portions of their local constituencies. Many media outlets have blamed the proliferation of these earmarks for at least part of the soaring budget deficits in recent years.
• “The big papers are hung up on earmarks,” Berry told the local leaders. “They see a bypass in Stuttgart as a waste of money. They overlook the fact that this administration earmarks everything.”
• The feeling of members of Congress, Berry said, “is that we know more about how money should be spent in our districts than the Department of Transportation.

Which of course raises an interesting question for the Honorable Gentleman from Arkansas: If you know so much about where federal dollars should be spent, why don't you come out from behind those closed doors and share your expertise with the rest of us who get to pay for it?

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Tags: Arkansas, Democrat, earmarks, U.S., representative, Marion Berry, pork, pork-barrel spenders, U.S. House