In a final deathblow, The White House and the Republican congress have finally annihilated that pesky thing we call 'fiscal responsibility'. So too were the vaporous remnants of the mythical "fiscally conservative" Republican destroyed.

In fact, 2005 marks a record in pork-barrel spending (spending earmarked for a particular politician's pet projects -- typically designed to draw further voter support in their electoral region, often to the dismay of the rest of the nation), including over 10,000 projects costing an astonishing $29 billion, up 6% from 2004.

According to Tim Schatz, the president of Citizens Against Government Waste, the non-partisan group that compiles the annual "Pig Book" which documents the vast swath of wasteful congressional appropriations:

"Pork is a form of legalized bribery... Members of Congress particularly on the Appropriations Committee take our tax dollars and turn it into projects that benefit them back home."

This spending comes freely despite the current national debt of more than $8 trillion. That's more than $28,000 for every man, woman, and child in these United States. That's $112,000 for a family of four. Compare that to the median annual household income of about $45,000.

So who benefits from this $29 billion? Well, probably not you. We can start there and then continue with this: