In contrast to my yummy earlier post on Wagyu beef, a new report from Heritage Foundation details the yucky mounds pork in this year's federal budget. Money passage:

Giving lawmakers their own pot of taxpayer dollars to distribute as they wish invites corruption. Not surprisingly, the media has been saturated with stories of lawmakers earmarking federal grants to projects directly benefiting campaign contributors, friends, relatives, and even themselves.

In addition to waste and corruption, lawmakers’ obsession with pork raises a larger concern about the role of the federal government. Members of the U.S. Congress—a national legislature that has historically debated war, Americans’ rights, and broad economic policy—have become, in the words of Rep. Dan Lungren (R–CA), “mere errand boys for local government and constituents.”

The report lists the top 100+ pork projects still in the FY2007 budget (as of 11-15-06). My favorite: $1,000,000 for Mormon cricket and grasshopper activities in Utah. What the...?

Spotlighting this stuff helps, of course. But policymakers respond more to incentives fundamentally shaped by institutions. Because the U.S. system is geographically based with single representative districts, each legislator has a strong incentive to advance budget items that impart benefits on their home district while imposing the costs on the general tax fund. In this system, logrolling, omnibus bills, and more recently earmarks, enable policies that would otherwise fail if voted on individually. The institutional structure—not bad politicians—is the root cause of economically inefficient policies such as pork barrel spending. In order to achieve fewer bad policies, public choice analysis would suggest divorcing representation from geography.

Happy earmarking.