PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: From the San Antonio Express-News:

When deficit hawks recently called on Congress to trim some pork out of the federal budget to compensate for the extraordinary costs of storm recovery, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay had a simple retort: If lawmakers want to cut discretionary spending, they have to put their own projects on the chopping block.

Predictably, DeLay’s charge hasn’t led to a profusion of spending sacrifice. Some members of Congress would rather eat their young than eliminate funding for home-district, pork-barrel projects.

Enter some innovative bloggers and an initiative they call Porkbusters. The effort encourages citizens to volunteer projects in their home districts for elimination to help offset storm reconstruction costs. Its Web site includes a database to track politicians’ responses to requests for spending cuts.

Unfortunately, the list of positive responses is depressingly small. Among the Texas delegation, no member has committed to even a single cut.

It would be hard to believe nowhere in Texas is there funding for hiking and biking trails that might not be better allocated, at least temporarily, for rebuilding the infrastructure of the storm-ravaged region.

Charity, after all, begins at home.

I hope that more local media will start asking local delegations about this.