
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, August 17, 1993                   TAG: 9309120275
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

DEFINITIONS

AT A TIME when the national debt is more than $4 trillion, most American taxpayers would agree that pork-barrel spending by Congress is obscene.

But what is pork? Is it, like porn, impossible to define but you know it when you see it?

Not at all, claims Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington-based organization that each year publishes a ``Pork Alert!'' of the 50 most dubious federal spending items.

You f+icano have specific, objective criteria, the group claims, for telling the smell. It's bad bacon, it says, if one or more of the following apply:

1. It is requested by only one chamber of Congress.

2. It is not specifically authorized (in the authorization process that precedes appropriations bills).

3. It is not competitively awarded.

4. It is not requested by the president.

5. It greatly exceeds the president's budget request or the previous year's budget.

6. It is not the subject of a congressional hearing.

7. It serves only a local interest.

Thus, the $2.6 mill

Please see microfilm for the rest of the editoria.

by CNB