To pork barrel, or not to pork barrel - that is the question.
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Not if you're a politician, though, and there's an election looming.
The rush this week from Liberal and Labor alike to commit to bypasses, link roads and interchanges throughout the valley to the value of a billion dollars reminds us all just how much can get promised when you need to get elected.
Which may answer the question posed at the beginning.
When it comes to politics, you pork barrel like a hampster on meth.
The trick, from a voter perspective, is working out who's the rodent - you or the politicians.
That usually depends on what gets delivered, apart from a lot of hot air.
The definition of "pork barrelling" generally refers to spending by a politician specifically for the benefit of a group of people in exchange for their support.
The trouble again is working out which group of people are spending for the benefit of which other group in support.
It is taxpayer money that is being spent originally, after all, and you'd think that might garner some support from the politicians.
But they often seem to see it the other way round, raising the question, what comes first, the chicken or the nest egg?
Christopher Pyne, Steve Ciobo and other high profile politicians bowing out lately might be able to shed some light on that topic as they contemplate their lifetime taxpayer funded government pensions.
The fact that pork barreling appears to come in one big blurt around election time makes you sometimes question the sincerity of politics.
No truly.
Wouldn't it be nice to get things when we need it and save everyone the grief of having to go the long way round Nelson Bay to Fingal for example.
Or complete the John Hunter bypass once and for all so that we can forget the last government money that went missing in mysterious circumstances.
Or ease up congestion round Glendale so we can miss Cardiff altogether.
But it's all about priorities.
Even though it seems perverse that money that could fund urgent things like medical research, that in turn could save lives, is denied because it's expedient to hold political capital up the sleeve now so that you can pull a rabbit out of the hat later.
But that's pork barreling for you. And it isn't a sudden last-minute process that happens just as elections loom.
It's a slow drip feed rationed out deliberately until political parties need a gush, so that it looks like they control the taps come ballot time and thus incline voters to go with the flow.
Call it a miracle, call it bribery, or maybe a reward.
The question remains, for who?
It depends again on your perspective, but I guess that's the pork lottery politicians and voters play each election, so roll out the barrel.
