Weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation

     Why are they building this monument? It’s a total waste of money. It’s just a building for the president. He can live in a regular house like everyone else.

The Articles of Confederation was passed on November 15, 1777 and they had many weaknesses. These weaknesses are that the Congress was unable to tax people and unable to administrate commerce. This wasn’t a good thing because they were always unable to put their finances in order. This was also a bad thing because there was a lot of competition between all the states. Other weaknesses are that most of the power was given to the states which meant that the Central Government was too weak. For any law to be changed 9 out of 13 states had to agree, but because each state is different it was hard for them to agree which meant that laws were rarely changed. Each state also had different types of money so it was difficult for other states to trade. There wasn’t a national army which made an easy target for other countries. There also wasn’t a president to pass laws so nothing really ever got done. Lastly, each state got only one vote.   

Pork Barrel Legislation

Pork barrel was introduced in as a concern with the government in Civil War. Farmers would give their slaves limited quantities of salt pork from wooden barrels. When used as a bill, suggest that the legislation is full of goods for the Members of the Congress. There are many disagreements about what the meaning is, people might argue about it and will have different perspectives. The Federal dollars have been framed of taking out the money of the pork barrel. Money from the pork barrel was spent on many things such as things for the river, flood controls, research of solar, cleaning the environment project, park clean up, and making the bicycle road. Also, some people disapprove of the pork barrel because it mostly has the money spent on projects that never meet the standards of the National Critic. Pork barrel gets a lot of attention and this causes them to exaggerate the financial public treasury. Members have tried to get rid of the pork barrel, but it wasn’t likely that they would succeed in it. That only benefits one state or district. The President’s Council of Economic Advisors suggested that the program of pork barrel was less than 1 % of the entire federal budget.