By Randall Smith.

Here is an odd pair of statistics. The Congress has an abysmal 17 percent approval rating. And yet 97 percent of congressmen and women running for office get reelected. People say they want to "drain the swamp," but oddly, they don't want to start with their own swamp creatures. Do people really disapprove of Congress? Or do they just disapprove of other people's congressmen and women?

"The Congress is filled with a bunch of crooks!" you hear people say. So, I take it that when their own representative puts a hefty "earmark" into the federal budget and brings home several billion dollars in "pork-barrel spending," their response must be: "You did what? You got billions in federal dollars? What are you - an idiot? Don't you realize that if you take billions in federal spending for our projects, everyone else will do that too, and soon, the whole country will be bankrupt?"

I'm sure they must - logically - say that. I've never heard anyone actually say that, but they would have to. Wouldn't they?

Or is it simply budget-busting and unnecessary "pork" when it's being spent on other people, but not when it's spent on our good and noble projects. It's "pork" when it's spent on their state projects, but it's money well spent when it's for our state projects. We are making valuable, legitimate investments in America's future. They are ripping off the American people.

The new administration is promising to reform the federal bureaucracy. It is said that "this is what the American people want." Perhaps. But this may be like their desire to "reform" the Congress. It all depends on who is going to be "reformed."

As the philosopher Plato taught centuries ago, it is difficult to reform a society because each group is convinced of its own importance and the value of the benefits they are receiving. No one wants their special interest cut or even trimmed because, of course, they don't consider their "thing" one of those nasty "special interests" that you hear so much negative reporting about.

One thing the new administration attempted - for about a day - was to freeze certain federal expenditures. The panic was immediate and overwhelming. "This is unreasonable! Unconstitutional! Unethical! Unconscionable! How can they do this? Don't they understand the damage it will do if they cut off the perpetual flow of federal funds?"

So perhaps we should look at ourselves honestly in the mirror and admit that all of us are on "welfare" now. Grants, entitlements, tariffs, special exemptions and tax breaks: we're all suckling at the government teat in our own way. And if the flow of money is cut back, many of us are going to squawk like a baby torn away from its mother's breast.

So expect people to go to those with greater access to power to keep their own spigot of federal money flowing. Cost-cutting reforms won't mean less special-interest lobbying; the lobbying will simply become more desperate. And the differences between those with access to government largesse and those who don't will increase.

That's the problem with the government having so much control over so much of the life of the nation with its financing going into so many pots. Everything depends on who has access to key government officials and the media.

Expect a flood of articles in the coming days detailing the gruesome results of how poor person X is suffering because the government is no longer doing Y. I notice in my own area, education, that there has been an uptick in articles bemoaning cuts in government funding. These are often paired with articles furious at the attempts of state governments to reestablish general education curricula and standards.

This has become standard practice well beyond the education establishment: insisting on "rights" with no corresponding responsibilities.

I was always amazed at how "generous" Joe Biden could imagine himself to be when he was spending other people's money. Did he save people with student loans billions? Did he spen...