PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: A look at the explosion of spending since Republicans took over Congress:

Even excluding spending related to Katrina, defense and homeland security, discretionary expenditures jumped 22 percent.

Perhaps more startling, this spending energy has been fueled by nearly unprecedented consumption of pork — the government variety, that is. Pork-barrel projects in the federal budget grew from 1,439 in fiscal 1995 to 13,997 in fiscal 2005, leading one to believe Republicans had been so deprived of this kind of nourishment over the 40 years they were out of the majority that they couldn’t resist gorging.

Just a whisper of an appropriations measure causes frenzy in both houses as members queue up weeks ahead to insert their favorite vote-garnering projects. Conscious about the bad publicity in the past for “bridges to nowhere,” the good lawmakers cut back on the number of earmarks, from 9,963 in 11 appropriations bills, a 29 percent decrease over last year’s 13,997. That is highly commendable, right? But wait. The $29 billion spent on the reduced number of pork projects actually was a 6.2 percent increase over the $27.3 billion spent the previous year.

Among the “crucial” items listed in the Waste folks’ annual Pig Book was $13.5 million for the International Fund for Ireland which helped finance the World Toilet Summit; $6.4 million for wood utilization research; $1 million for the Waterfree Urinal Conservation Initiative, and $500,000 for the Sparta, N.C., Teapot Museum. These political necessities were provided at taxpayer expense while wind and water inundated Louisiana and Mississippi and bombs blew away soldiers in Iraq.

Sigh. House Majority Leader John Boehner told us in his PorkBusters interview that constituents are mad about this, and that he hears that wherever he goes. I think that if people want to see progress here, they need to communicate those sentiments loudly and often.

UPDATE: Stan Brown says that spending isn’t nearly as bad as this makes it sound.