Saturday essay: Pork most fishy

The problem with reining in pork spending is that it's so pervasive and ingrained in Congress that the public's eyes glaze over at its mention.

Here's a big fish tale that should open some eyes.

Alaska Airlines recently unveiled its "Salmon-Thirty-Salmon," a $500,000 project involving 30 artisans who painted a 120-foot-long salmon on a 737 -- courtesy of taxpayers.

The fishy public benefit is to promote the Alaskan seafood industry. So says the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board, which in less than three years reportedly has managed to hook almost $30 million from the feds -- mostly through the pork-prodding of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska.

And that's just a whiff of a far bigger stench.

You see, the chairman of the marketing group just so happens to be the president of Alaska's state Senate, Ben Stevens. He's the son of pork-grinder Sen. Stevens. Talk about a family's pork pipeline.

This is the pinnacle of public-fleecing absurdity. The nation can't secure its borders or its ports. Homeland Security has been anything but secure since its inception. And Americans no long feel safe at home.

Yet in blind disregard of these national priorities, and in the aftermath of one of the worse national disasters in the nation's history, there's more than enough federal cash to paint a big fish on a 737.

How much longer will the public tolerate Congress fishing through its pockets?

-- Bob Pellegrino