BRADFORD PLUMER DEFENDS PORK: “Without pork, activist government would wither and die.”

Color me unpersuaded, on a number of levels. . . .

UPDATE: Capt. Ed observes: “Plumer’s argument amounts to an admission that the kind of big-government, intrusive spending that will come from perennial policy stands of progressives has no chance of succeeding through democratic means. The only way in which single-payer health care and greater federal protections for unions can ever pass is to have a built-in bribery mechanism to sway enough votes . . . I agree with him on that point, and it demonstrates the corrosive nature of pork better than anything I’ve previously written.”