The Discerning Texan

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.

Labels: Congress, Democrat, Earmarks, Pork, US Senate

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

Our favorite switcheroo: Under the previous Senate reform, the Senate parliamentarian would have determined whether a bill complied with earmark disclosure rules. Under Mr. Reid's new version, the current Majority Leader, that is Mr. Reid himself, will decide if a bill is in compliance. When was the last time a Majority Party Leader declared one of his own bills out of order?

I understand why the Democrats, now in the majority, want to preserve their opportunities forpaying off special interests. That's largely why they want to be in the majority in the first place. But why on earth should Republicans join with them?

Robert Novak has more:

The persistence of this consensus is therefore puzzling, especially when Republicans have few other issues working in their favor, thanks to the Iraq War. To date, Republican leaders have been very reluctant to upset the bipartisan consensus on earmarking. Between the parties and across regions of the country, lawmakers remain, by and large, steadfastly supportive of every congressman's right to perform "private charity" with other people's money. Senate leadership of both parties has been indifferent and even hostile toward Senators Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) for pursuing this issue with vigor.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has sought at every turn to weaken reforms that have already passed the Senate almost unanimously. He has succeeded. The bill the Senate will see next is the one that passed the House yesterday with only eight votes in opposition. It significantly weakens Senate rules on earmark transparency, earmarks benefiting family members, and threats made against members that they will lose their earmarks if they do not vote for bills.

Because their leadership has not cared for this struggle from the start, Senate Republicans will likely be forced to vote for this weak bill simply because they will otherwise look like they are obstructing reform.

Talleyrand's words occur to me: the Republicans' acquiescence in Democratic corruption is criminal; worse, it's stupid.

Labels: Congress, Corruption, Democrat Sabotage, Pork, Republican, US Senate

Labels: America War Support, Democrat Sabotage, Pork