Republican Rep. Harold Rogers of Kentucky is head of the Appropriations Committee.  He is helping to shoulder the awesome responsibility of letting Americans know that the GOP is only joking about this whole cutting spending thing.

In the 1980s, the military had its infamous $800 toilet seat. Today, it has a $17,000 drip pan.

Thanks to a powerful Kentucky congressman who has steered tens of millions of federal dollars to his district, the Army has bought about $6.5 million worth of the “leakproof” drip pans in the past three years to catch transmission fluid on Black Hawk helicopters. And it might want more from the Kentucky company that makes the pans, even though a similar pan from another company costs a small fraction of the price: about $2,500.

He has been called The Prince of Pork by the Lexington Herald-Leader newspaper.  He defends these expenditures by claiming that the $17,000 drip pans “work well” and, he adds, “they save the taxpayer money.”  Well hell, that’s two more things than Rep. Harold Rogers does.

Thanks to David for the heads up.