When the federal government gives money to your district, your elected officials have "brought home the bacon."

When the federal government gives money to any other district, it's called "pork."

Pork or bacon — either way, folks, something isn't kosher.

One day last week, a press release from Rep. Sherwood Boehlert "announced" that the Garrattsville Fire Company in Otsego County had been awarded $8,100 in federal funds from the Department of Homeland Security's Office for Domestic Preparedness , in cooperation with the U.S. Fire Administration.

Hey, how about that Sherry Boehlert? What a guy!

But on the same day, a press release from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton "announced" the very same $8,100 award to the Garrattsville Fire Company.

Must be some mistake. Sherry and Hillary couldn't be claiming credit for the same grant, could they?

Wait, it gets better.

Yes, that very day, a press release from Sen. Charles Schumer "announced" that Garrattsville could expect a check for $8,100 from Uncle Sugar (my words, not the senator's) any day now.

Now, in fairness, none of the politicians came right out and claimed to have wrested the funds away from a reluctant Congress for the gallant firefighters of Garrattsville, who, I'm quite certain, deserve the money and will put it to good use.

It's also possible that the three public servants worked together to make certain that Garrattsville was taken care of.

However, Boehlert's press release didn't mention Clinton and Schumer. Clinton's didn't mention Boehlert and Schumer. And Schumer's ... well, you get the idea.

Each press release led us to believe that the representative or senator was "bringing home the bacon" or at the very least, graciously imparting some federal largesse out of the goodness of his or her heart.

See if you can guess from whose press release this paragraph sprung:

"Last year Boehlert's district received $4,448,136 in Assistance to Firefighters grants, almost tripling the $1,377,385 Congressman Boehlert's district received in 2002."

Unfortunately, someone in Boehlert's office misspelled Garrattsville — spelling it "Garrettsville" throughout the release — but as long as the name is spelled correctly on the check, the firefighters probably won't mind.

Now, I like Sherry Boehlert, and I'm sure over the years he has been to Garrattsville a lot more than I have. I think he does a pretty fine job overall, and I'll probably vote for him in November. The same goes for Schumer this year and Clinton in 2006. But this carefully crafted image of politicians peeling off a few thousand bucks for us every now and then drives me nuts.

It isn't their money.

It's our money, and if occasionally some of it happens to float back our way, then that's wonderful. But don't expect me to take off my hat, genuflect and thank somebody I'm paying to vote for me in Congress.

It's one of the lovely advantages of incumbency. If you're a senator or representative, you get to use one of your aides paid by our tax dollars to use computers paid for by us to create faxes that are sent out at our expense to every newspaper, radio station and television outlet you want to contact to tell us that we're getting some of our money back.

And just to be on the safe side, you have someone on the public payroll e-mail all of the media outlets just in case we didn't check our fax machines.

It kind of makes me wonder if telling all of us about the $8,100 didn't cost more than $8,100.

Like so much else spewing out of Washington, the press releases generally work because most of us don't know any better. That includes many newspapers that dutifully print a politician's name in a headline along with the amount of the check from the Treasury.

The Daily Star headline, I'm proud to say, read, "Fire company to get grant" above a four-paragraph story giving equal mention to Clinton, Schumer and Boehlert — once.

On the state level. Bill Magee and James Seward aren't the least bit bashful about claiming credit whenever we receive a few dollars from Albany.

Who knows, maybe Schumer, Clinton and Boehlert all worked their tails off for Garrattsville. Maybe we owe each of them a debt of gratitude for making certain our area didn't get ignored when the money was passed out in Washington.

Then again, maybe none of them had anything much to do with Garrattsville's bounty.

Maybe, by all three claiming credit for bringing home the bacon, they produced far more sizzle than substance.

Sam Pollak is editor of The Daily Star. He can be reached at spollak@thedailystar.com or at (607) 432-1000, ext. 208.