Continuing on in my Ahabian quest to understand pork funding, I have ascertained what percentage of Rhode Island’s overall federal funding is pork, i.e. funds not approved through the official appropriations process.

By visiting the state’s budget office, I learned that Rhode Island received $1.876 billion in federal funds for fiscal year 2005. According to Citizens for Government Waste, Rhode Island received 61 million in pork funding. If my math is correct, this means that about 3% of federal funds to Rhode Island came through the illegitimate pork funding process.

Is this a big deal? It depends on what you consider a big deal to be. Some contenders for Chafee’s seat would have you believe that pork is the end-all and be-all problem of our modern times. I tend to think it is a small problem comparatively speaking. The war in Iraq is a big problem. Social security funding is a big problem. Keeping jobs in the US is a big problem.

Prioritizing is one of the keys to quality leadership. If what you do as a leader is mainly make mountains out of molehills, you are not going to be very effective. Moreover, you are going to mislead the public.