This is a real can of worms. This is another thing that will have to stuffed down the congressional throats as they would never cure this themselves. While there are many aspects to this, the one I have in mind at the moment is the practice of attaching a totally unrelated item to a congressional bill so it can ride the coattails of the needed legislation. This is the way they get dams and roads back in their home area when it cannot stand on its own merits. Then come the trades. A tells B that he will vote for B's pork if B will vote for A's pork. I'll have to admit that calling this pork is an insult to the pigs and hogs of the world. I don 't know how much of the Federal budget disappears down this self-serving rathole but I'll bet the GAO could figure it out. I would be shocked if i were less than 10% and would not be a bit surprised if it went to 20%.

      Can't you hear the howls? They would probably say that it would result in too many bills to be studied and that they can't do it. But then, how can they do it now if all of these things are still there, just in combined bills? If I were to split a book in half and then bind these halves as two books, would it really take longer to read? In fact I believe things would be simpler because many of these pork bills would never reach the floor under their own power.

      What do I recommend instead? I recommend single topic legislation, strictly interpreted. If an "amendment" is not directly pertinent to the thrust of the bill, the amendment would be summarily rejected. But then again, who would determine this? I guess the Supreme Court could take this on. I like self-enforcing rules. In this case, if a non-pertinent amendment would make it through the process and the Supreme Court determined that it was non-pertinent, the original bill would be discarded in its entirety. This would put a powerful suppressant against anyone trying to take advantage of the system. Part of the idea would have to be that these desision would have an inside fast track to the court. They would have to rule on it immediately in preference to all other problems they have.

      I believe the waste has to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars. Think what this alone would do to your income tax.

      One of my personal aphorisms is that I don't feel overtaxed anywhere near as much as I feel underserved. And this item is certainly one of the strong contributors to that.