Pork Barrel Spending – Literally

An ironic bit of pork spending out of the stimulus, from Hannity:

Porkfest!

Your tax dollars are being used to buy a lot of pork and I mean literally! The government's Recovery.gov Web site reports that the stimulus money has been dolled out for the following:

• $2.5 million to Los Angeles for "ham, water added, cooked, frozen and sliced"

• Another $1.1 million to L.A. for "two pounds frozen ham, sliced"

• $16.7 million to Minnesota for "canned pork"

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack was quick to defend the ham purchases, saying that all that ham is going to food banks and soup kitchens: "The references to two-pound frozen ham sliced are the sizes of the packaging... In fact the contract in question purchased 760,000 pounds of ham for $1.19 million at a cost of approximately $1.50 per pound."

By the way, Tom, the ham you've been paying $1.50 for actually costs 79 cents in most grocery stores. Thanks for being so careful with our stimulus money.