And huge tax breaks for Hollywood & failing wind farms in the fiscal cliff bill wasn´t even questioned.

The help for Alaska should have been in a separate bill and Christie should have learned what was in the bill before he threw his fit. That goes for some of us as well.

Agree with OP and 1 & 2.

Omnibus bills are Washington´s way of hiding spending increases, a problem that has gotten way out of control.

For many members of congress, who want to show the folks back home all that they have accomplished, it is only way they know how to satisfy their constituencies. The spending that results needs to be questioned, as others have said.

The spending problem, however, won´t be solved by reforming omnibus packages. These pork-laden bills are dwarfed by runaway entitlement programs, which very few have the power or nerve to reform.

Pretty soon we will all be looking to Washington for our next meal.

Agree these issues should be voted on one by one. The reason they are slipped into these emergency bills is because the wouldn´t make the cut voted on individually. It´s time to get serious about budgeting and setting priorities.

Too many people want too many freebies and the only way todays politicians think they can keep their phony-balony jobs is to supply those freebies. What the hell do they care, they´ve got the best of everything in their cushey, royal jobs.

17 billion "community development", huh? All spending bills should be singluar and not lumped into one and should explain how the funds are going to be used. Too much pork using other people´s money to buy influence coming from Washington and of couse this has not just started it has been going on for a very long time. Cut it all!!
I understand putting all the pork in one bill is easier and the peons don´t have to know about what a bill contains just the name should be sufficient for us. Back door, hiding and sneaking one over on peons.

The only way to stop the underhanded practice of putting unrelated riders on important bills is the line-item-veto.

Congress has been struggling with the LIV since the Confederacy and many presidents have asked for that power. Some have not, as a LIV authority would make them personally responsible for the pork that their constituents have placed in the bill for them.

You really can´t have effective ´community development ´ without paying someone handsomely for community organizing, first.

Message TO ALASKA. The bill was purportedly for SANDY relief. Alaska relief should be taken care of separately, if required, in a bill with NO PORK.

Um, Alaska ... monies to Alaska for a disaster in northeast U.S. is pork.

Entitlements are the problem. Pork creates jobs and raises standards of living. Pork spending is utterly insignificant compared to what we are wasting with EBT cards, food stamps, 99 weeks of unemployment checks, social security to people who have million dollar retirement plans. This is where the focus should be. Not the pennies spent on pork projects. Time to end the small minded attitudes, roll up the sleeves and fix this mess. BTW, Christie and King are traitors.

All of this can be avoided if the bills passed stick to addressing the problems at hand; in this case Sandy. If Alaska needs money for a pipe line, address it in it´s own bill. This ridiculous larding on of other matters cause a lot of trouble.

Somebody help me out here?

Why is the Federal Government in the business of disaster relief in the first place?

Where is that authorized in the Constitution?

I think you would be hard pressed to find it.

"Message from Alaska: Our
disaster relief isn’t ‘pork’ "

It certainly has nothing to do with hurricane Sandy.