Soon after Hurricane Katrina flattened the Gulf coast a couple years back, another storm hit. A storm of frivolous pork-barrel spending.

Exhibit A was $223 million for the so-called “bridge to nowhere,” to connect the Alaskan town of Ketchikan to a nearby island airport. Townfolk could get there already. By ferry. But hey, why take the ferry for seven minutes when you can force taxpayers around the country to pay hundreds of millions for a bridge?

Alaska Senator Ted Stevens , the longest-serving Republican in the U.S. Senate, threatened to resign if Congress de-funded his bridge. Promises, promises. The earmarks got dropped. And Stevens? Still a senator.

But Alaska still got hundreds of millions in generic transportation dollars to spend as it chose. The state legislature allocated tens of millions to do the Ketchikan bridge anyway. And more tens of millions for a bridge in Anchorage. However, many Anchorage residents don’t want the new bridge, citing high financial and possibly environmental costs.

See? Many supposed beneficiaries of pork just don’t want it.

This is important. Concerned citizens must make a point of fighting not just the federal pork going to other states. We must fight Ãespecially, and loudly largesse flowing to our own states, cities, neighborhoods.

Let’s kick the struts out from under our politicians’ rationalizations. They say they’re bankrupting the country for the good of their constituents. Let’s tell these jokers: “You say this is for us? We don’t want it!”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.