Last month, when Mayor Pat McCrory went up to the state legislature to get more funding for our over-burdened criminal justice system, Sen. Dan Clodfelter, with a straight face, told television reporters that if Charlotte wanted more criminal justice system funding legislators would have to make tough choices between funding schools and funding the courts.

What a crock!

Clodfelter and others have long counted on the fact that the average taxpayer has no idea what legislators spend money on in Raleigh. Here's a small sample of what the House leadership currently plans to spend money on:

• Drag Racing Hall of Fame Museum: $3 million
• Blue Ridge Park Parkway 75th anniversary celebration: $100,000
• Marketing funds for the home furnishings industry: $2.6 million
• Lake Junaluska Welcome Center funding: $250,000
• Improved internet connectivity for the Southwestern part of the state: $1.4 million

That's just a bit of the more than $60 million in pork the house has planned. If history is any indicator, the Senate side will put up a list that is just as bad. It's worth remembering the next time you read about how we don't have enough money for education, roads or the criminal justice system. What they really mean is that they don't have it because they spent it on something else.