The GOP is Officially Against Earmarks - Let the Hand Waving Begin

[Anonymous]

You know it's a lie. I know it's a lie. Mitch McConnell just announced that they will do away with earmarks. This, after requesting one billion (yes, billion!) dollars of earmarks for his home state over the last three years. I suppose we are going to hear a lot of the following: "this is not an earmark. It is an important infrastructure project vital to our state!"

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/15/AR2010111504511.html?hpid=topnews

There is only one clear conscience on earmarks - I'll give credit to John Boehner. But in the last twenty years he has not been able to recruit any followers. I doubt he will find them in the next Congress, either.

[Anonymous]

Best part of all: The Teabagging "fiscal conservatives" are all fleeing from spots on the Appropriations Committee. After all, that's where the spending happens, and if they were to actually take a seat, they'd have to come up with some ideas, and possible make decisions on which programs to cut.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45250.html

Of course, the self-described "fiscal conservatives" who elected these folks don't know enough to even worry about this stuff, so it's A-OK, so long as these demogogues keep waving the bloody shirt, and harping on "earmarks."

Does your average "teabagger" even know what an earmark is? Somehow I doubt it.

[Anonymous]

Actually, to the extent that one believes that many tea baggers are from rural states or communities, I wonder what they will think when someone proposes the elimination of all agri, telecomm, postal service, etc, subsidies. Much of rural America is heavily subsidized. In Alaska, every citizen gets some govt money not because they worked or did anything useful but simply because they live in Alaska and benefit from the oil revenues. Nice work if you can get it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actually, to the extent that one believes that many tea baggers are from rural states or communities, I wonder what they will think when someone proposes the elimination of all agri, telecomm, postal service, etc, subsidies. Much of rural America is heavily subsidized. In Alaska, every citizen gets some govt money not because they worked or did anything useful but simply because they live in Alaska and benefit from the oil revenues. Nice work if you can get it!

B-b-but...that's not welfare! Those are all for WHITE people!!!

**sputter**

[Anonymous]

Yes, I haven't followed this whole earmark debate closely but from a distance I find it rather confusing. On one hand, we're supposed to be against earmarks because it's wasted government spending. On the other hand, I hear I'm supposed to vote for a congressperson because they bring home government money to my district.

Huh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, I haven't followed this whole earmark debate closely but from a distance I find it rather confusing. On one hand, we're supposed to be against earmarks because it's wasted government spending. On the other hand, I hear I'm supposed to vote for a congressperson because they bring home government money to my district.

Huh?

There's an old saying in political science, "People hate the Congress but they love their Congressman". We want fiscal conservatism AND we want someone to bring home the bacon - even though collectively that bacon is pork.

[Anonymous]

Technically, aren't earmarks another form of redistribution of wealth?

If they cut them, the least populated states will be hurting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Technically, aren't earmarks another form of redistribution of wealth?

If they cut them, the least populated states will be hurting.

Yes. For example, take Alaska. For every dollar they pay in federal taxes, $5.74 comes back to them in federal funds spent in their state. The same is true for West Virginia, which is unsurprising because of the poverty. I'm not sure why it happens in Alaska. I thought they were the "Thanks but No Thanks" state. Well I guess it's half right.

[Anonymous]

This whole earmark thing is totally phony.

The stimulus bill had a "no earmarks" provision. It passed with no earmarks at all. Then what happened? All the senators and representatives who called the stimulus bill "communism" and all the other condemnations, quietly wrote letters to the various federal agencies dispensing the cash and asked for money for specific projects.

Then, those same senators, reps and governors who railed against the stimulus appeared at photo ops with giant fake checks to take credit for the money.

So, the result was worse than earmarks. It was sneaky back door hypocrisy.

[Anonymous]

Well, that didn't take long!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40344219/ns/politics-capitol_hill/

I guess it's not the most egregious earmark, but there it is from the #2 Republican in the Senate.

Now that the fiscal charade is over, I suppose we can close this thread and move on to the "liberty" charade.