State congressmen pull in higher-ed dollars

Ah, delicious pork!

Alabama ranks third, behind much larger Florida and California, in the amount of money distributed to universities by Congressmen without normal review. Third!

Last year, U.S. Rep. Sonny Callahan, R-Mobile, predicted that Alabama would not suffer when Congress and the president attempted to reign in federal spending.

"Somebody might get hurt, but it's not going to be Alabama," Callahan said then. "We might narrow the size of the overall pie, but Alabama will just take a bigger slice."

Yes, we're basically mugging the rest of the country for education funds! We're a rogue state! There's an enormous new building going up across town at the University of Alabama. Guess who it's named after? Senator Richard Shelby! You paid for that! The entire state of Alabama is on welfare! The largest employer in Birmingham is the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The largest employer here is Tuscaloosa is the University of Alabama. I'm not sure what the largest employer in Huntsville is, but the city's main industry is federally-funded aerospace.

And we're still desperately poor. Gosh, I guess the GOP is right about welfare breeding poverty.

And crime. Give me your wallet, I'm setting up a scholarship fund.