$400,000 Pork Barrel spending for Teapot Museum in North Carolina

The North Carolina legislature is debating $400,000 for the Sparta Teapot Museum, home of the 'World's Largest Teapot Collection':

"If someone set a bonfire with copies of this budget, it would smell like bacon," Senate Minority Leader Phil Berger told his colleagues as the chamber was debating the $17.2 billion state government budget...

...Republicans in the General Assembly were quick to hop onto pork-barrel projects in the budget. A $400,000 appropriation to the Sparta Teapot Museum became the focus of the critics' rally against the budget...

"...I think the reason the teapot museum has jumped to the top of the list is this was never discussed in public in terms of an open meeting, to my knowledge," Berger said, noting that it was not in earlier budgets approved by the House or the Senate. Pork-barrel projects adorn state budget