In the latest issue of Rolling Stone their cover story was titled "Worst Congess Ever" (GREAT article by the way) and in it they listed the Top 10 Worst Congressman. Donald Young was among them:
1 - Denny Hastert - "The Highway Robber"
2 - James Sensenbrenner - "The Dictator"
3 -
Don Young - "Mr. Pork"http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12054520/the_10_worst_congressmen/3 "Powerful enough to earn the moniker "Alaska's Third Senator," this seventeen-term congressman and former tugboat captain knows how to haul home the bacon. Thanks in no small part to his efforts, Alaskans receive $1.87 in federal funds for every dollar they contribute in taxes. Last year, Young leveraged his post as chairman of the House Transportation Committee to stuff the highway bill -- "like a turkey," in his own words -- with nearly $1 billion in pork-barrel projects for his home state.
More than $400 million of the money was earmarked for two separate "bridges to nowhere." One, nearly as long as the Golden Gate, would serve an island community of only fifty people. The second, a monument to waste known as "Don Young's Way," would connect Anchorage to a patch of scarcely habitable marshland.
"These two bridges are the most egregious example of government waste we've ever seen," says Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste. Even the conservative Heritage Foundation called one of Young's bridges a "national embarrassment." But the congressman refused to scrap the projects. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when Sen. John McCain proposed that Young redirect his prized pork money to help rebuild New Orleans, Young accused his detractors of "ignorance and stupidity." The victims of Katrina, he suggested, "can kiss my ear!" "
While the 'bridges to nowhere' are both outrageous examples of government waste and pork-barrel politics gone completely overboard in my opinion, I fail to see how any of this would hurt Don Young in Alaska. If Alaskans truly cared about fiscal responsibility, deficit spending and earmarks they would not keep sending Ted Stevens to Washington. Obviously they just vote for the politician most able to bring home the most bacon, as many states' voters do.
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