Wrap a pair of old sweat socks in a pretty box with a bow, the end result will still be old sweat socks.

Less than six weeks after 63 members of the House of Representatives were ousted by politicians preaching fiscal sanity, and with the drumbeat to cease spending, our leaders have repackaged old socks, attached a $1 trillion price tag to it and continued their merry spending ways, deaf to the election results six weeks ago.

The latest legislation, called an omnibus spending bill, which basically is a bill to fund the government with every piece of pork loin and scrap of bacon included. Rhetoric aside, each political party shares in the age-old practice of earmarks. An earmark is a “pet” project used to secure votes to pass legislation.

I want to pass this bill and I need your vote. I will give you almost $300,000 for pest management in your home district and you will vote for my legislation. Deal. Done.

But November’s election should have shown the anger and frustration of the American electorate. Now it appears it will be the same old song with a different conductor.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.), a champion of banning earmarks, picked out nearly 7,000 earmarks in the latest omnibus bill, which would cost about $1 trillion. Among the gems, according to McCain:

• $522,000 for cranberry and blueberry disease and breeding in New Jersey

• $413,000 for peanut research in Alabama

• $208,000 for beaver management in North Carolina

• $300,000 for Polynesian Voyaging Society in Hawaii

The fact is we are out of money. We are taxed to death already. We are begging for our leaders to get the nation’s fiscal house in order. This is no way to do that.

The people spoke in the only way they could — through the ballot box. The results are looking much like those old sweat socks with the pretty bow. The bottom line, the socks still stink — and so does this 2,000-page monstrosity.