After all, Byrd is no longer in power. The current chairman, Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, is probably totally indifferent to pork-barrel projects. None of them were particularly expensive, as subsidies go. But they became the stuff of legend because they were so utterly, completely outdated. They were the product of the World War II era, when the military needed wool to make lots of uniforms and beeswax for waterproofing.
Nobody seems to know how mohair got in the mix.
It was being used to make upholstered furniture, which did not actually play a major part in the war effort. But while our soldiers were making the world safe for democracy, our legislators decided to make it safe for angora goat herders. By 1960, the world had synthetic fibers, and the military had no further need for wool or beeswax, let alone mohair. But the subsidies were still there in 1993, when the Clinton administration decided to get rid of them as part of Reinventing Government. They ran into a bipartisan cast of opponents, most of them from Texas, a place that produces a lot of mohair.