The Discerning Texan
-- Edmund Burke
Thursday, September 13, 2007
The Democrat Pork Fest Continues in Congress and the Senate
Want to know what had to be cut from the bill in order to get the North Dakota Peace Garden? Oh, just a silly little project that would have updated technology in air-traffic control towers. But the Peace Garden wasn't the only beneficiary of freeing up funds from making air travel safer. California will also get a "mule and packer museum". Perhaps Americans can start traveling by donkey instead.
Senator Tom Coburn attempted to stop the pork party, to no avail. He offered an amendment that would have forbidden earmarks on transportation bills until all deficient bridges had been properly updated. That just barely failed -- by a vote of 82 to 14. Eighty-two Senators voted to prioritize pork over infrastructure maintenance.
In fact, the pork comes to one out of every eight dollars spent on transportation now. In the past eleven years, earmarks have increased a whopping 1150%, while the dollar value of the pork has increased over 300% in the same period. Ninety-nine percent of these earmarks bypassed planning agencies, meaning that the monies got no review for prioritization. How many bridges could have been repaired with that money over the last decade? How many baseball fields in places like Billings got built instead?
Eight billion dollars would build 32 new St. Anthony Bridges. How many hundreds could it have repaired? And that's just this transportation bill.
Politicians like Jim Oberstar love their bike paths and museums, especially when they have their names attached to them. Oberstar and his ilk would rather spend money on their vanity projects than infrastructure. And after demonstrating such perverse priorities on managing our money, the porkers have the temerity to demand even more in taxes to do what they should have done from the beginning.
Of course, you can change this: vote these yahoos out of office next year.
Friday, August 03, 2007
Murtha is Numero Uno--by far--in Earmarks
Murtha, the defense industry’s darling, has been known throughout his tenure on the defense panel to shell out a large number of earmarks. His biggest earmark in the bill is $23 million for the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), a move that sparked a fierce fight with Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), who earlier this year voted in a private meeting to strip Murtha’s earmark.
The Bush administration requested $16 million to shut down the center, which is in Murtha’s district, because it replicated the work of a similar center.
Murtha’s second highest earmark is for $15 million for a military molecular medicine initiative.
Labels: Defeatocrats, Democrat Sabotage, Earmarks, John Murtha, Pork, Surrender Caucus
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
House Republicans Revolt over Earmarks
When you actually read what Pelosi is supporting Cnow--courtesy of that Einstein at the House Appropriations Committee, David Obey (D-WI)--it begins to boggle the mind. Which is certainly what John Boehner must be thinking.
Glenn Reynolds has more details about the reaction to the Democrats' hypocrisy.
Labels: Congress, Corruption, Democrat, Earmarks
Sunday, May 13, 2007
UPDATED House Democrats put (Promised) Lobbying Reform into Full Reverse
(if you buy that, I've got some beachfront property in West Texas I would like to sell you too...)
UPDATE: Big Dog comments on the political ramifications of the Dems out-and-out desertion of the "reforms" they trumpeted so loudly in the campaign.
Labels: Congress, Corruption, Democrat, Earmarks
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Murtha gunning for a big Earmark in Intelligence Bill
Labels: Congress, Democrat Sabotage, Earmarks, Ethics, John Murtha
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
With Apologies to Pete Townsend....
UPDATE: Sorry about that "Won't Get Fooled Again" thing--I had to pull it; it was too much for even me.
Labels: Congress, Corruption, Democrat, Earmarks, Nancy Pelosi
