And the spinach growers, dairy farmers, and citrus growers.  And to put a more personal touch on it, you have this:

"I understand this is the way our legislature works, but I think it's just sickening," Michelle Matthews of Eagle Mountain told ABC 4 News. She's upset because one of the earmarks reimburses California spinach farmers $25 million for losses they suffered. The losses came when they were unable to sell their crops last fall after Americans got sick and died from e-coli bacteria in a batch of tainted spinach.

Some of that spinach found its way to the Matthew's dinner table. Michelle got sick, but her daughter, Arabella, almost died. Arabella was just two-years-old when she came down with e-coli. She spent nine days at Primary Children's Hospital, had an operation and was on kidney dialysis.

The Matthews have about $60,000 in medical bills now, mostly covered by insurance. She says the family has been assured the spinach grower's insurance company would pay the bills, but no money has arrived. Then Mrs. Matthews read that the spinach farmers stand to gain $25 million from the Iraq war spending bill.

"To reimburse them for making people ill is just inappropriate," Mrs. Matthews said. "It's insane that my tax dollars and the tax dollars of my family are going to pay these spinach farmers for their bad spinach for things that were their fault in the first place."

This from the same Democratic party that decry's Enron and corporate America for greed and corporate irresponsibility.  This from the same Democratic party that abhors corporate welfare.  This from the same old Democratic Party.  What happened to trimming pork?  What happened to government responsibility?  Oh that's right... you're now in power so it doesn't matter.

But hey... at least they're thinking things through when they decide which projects to fund:

Kirsten Gillibrand arrived in Congress two months ago, ready to tackle national problems like health care, immigration and the war in Iraq. But few issues are as challenging as the one she has been confronting for the past few weeks: picking pet projects for her district.
...
It is the bricks and mortar of legislative life, and, as Ms. Gillibrand has come to learn, the requests for federal aid range from the major (like $7 million to build a new police station in Saratoga Springs) to things that are obscure even to her (like $400,000 to renovate the James Vanderpoel House in Kinderhook).

"Who was Mr. Vanderpoel?" Ms. Gillibrand blurted out the other day as she went down the list of requests, known as earmarks in the shorthand of backroom politics. (This one, she learned, was for a home that the local historical society describes as a "a distinguished example of Federal Period architecture" in the 1820s.)
...
"I came up with that idea at literally 3 in the morning when I couldn't sleep," she said to her staff at a recent meeting, after proposing a novel way to get $6.8 million in funding for renovations at the Olympic center in Lake Placid. "It made sense at 3 in the morning."

But hey... it's only money.  Oh right... that's my money.