Porkbusters

Porkbusters is an effort led by mostly conservative and libertarian bloggers to cut pork barrel spending by the U.S. Congress used to help pay for projects.

The effort was launched on September 18, 2005, after the massive scale of the reconstruction effort necessary for the areas devastated by Hurricane Katrina had become apparent. It quickly picked up steam as blogger Glenn Reynolds (aka "Instapundit") began promoting the idea and the influential-though-anonymous blogger NZ Bear set up a website showing which members of the U.S. Congress had committed to cutting projects in their own districts to help offset the disaster recovery effort.

Reynolds encourages his readers to send him copies of pork-cutting letters they send to their representatives and Senators, along with the responses from the elected officials. He then posts these on his website under the heading "Porkbusters Update".

In operation for less than six weeks, as of October 13, 2005 the project has already managed to garner $84,000,000 in specific budget cut commitments out of various Representatives and non-specific agreements out of many more. In addition, those Representatives who have been contacted and have negative responses are highlighted and their contact information is made available for their constituents.

The Porkbusters project endorsed the Coburn Amendment. Officially titled the Coburn Amendment to the Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development appropriations bill (HR 3058), the Coburn Amendment was a bill proposed by Senator Tom Coburn that would divert money from the transportation bill, specifically the $220 million for the Gravina Island Bridge in Alaska to the reconstruction of the "Twin Spans" bridge in Louisiana. The amendment was defeated 82-15.

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Wikipedia