Posts
A $630 billion spending bill nearing final approval in Congress includes $6.6 billion for thousands of lawmakers' pet projects, including $51.5 million requested by Democratic vice presidential nominee Joe Biden when both presidential candidates have sworn off seeking any money. Read the entire article. 
Adding insult to injury - or in this case Congressionally mandated theft - the Democratically controlled Congress is passing $6.6 billion in earmarks - special interest spending that has never gone through the legislative process of debate and vote, spending that has never been subject to competitive bidding. Republicans were shoulder to shoulder with their Democratic partners at the trough.
______________________________________________________
This from the USA Today:
Taxpayers for Common Sense analyzed the 2,321 special-interest items called "earmarks" in the spending bill. The legislation is a temporary measure that would fund the government through March, rather than October 2009, when the next fiscal year ends. It combines spending bills for the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, as well as nearly $30 billion in disaster relief for flood and hurricane victims and up to $25 billion in loans to automakers.
The House of Representatives approved the measure 370-58 on Wednesday, and the Senate is likely to follow before members leave Washington to head home for the November elections.
Both presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, have criticized earmarks. McCain, who doesn't request earmarks, has said that as president, he would veto any bill containing them. Since joining the Senate in 2005, Obama has requested $860.6 million in earmarks, according to the taxpayer group, but none this year, and he has pledged to reduce them if elected president. . . .
The list of top earmarkers:
Senate
Ted Stevens, R-Alaska $238.5 million
Thad Cochran, R-Miss. $226.6 million
Robert Byrd, D-W.Va. $224.9 million
Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii $222.2 million
House
John Murtha, D-Pa. $111.1 million
C.W. Bill Young, R-Fla. $99 million
Jerry Lewis, R-Calif. $78.2 million
Dave Obey, D-Wis. $51.5 million
This corrupting and corrupt process will not end until reform is forced down the throat of lawmakers of both parties. For Democrats, earmarks are the currency of their politics. For Republicans, they are poison pills that rip apart the party.
Showing posts with label porkbusters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label porkbusters. Show all posts
Friday, September 26, 2008
Congress At The Earmark Trough
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Interesting News & Posts - 26 February 2008
The interesting news and posts from across the blogoshpere, all below the fold.
________________________________________________________
Art: Bouguereau, The Rapture of Psyche, 1895
A porkbuster’s update from Instapundit: Senator Jim DeMint is proposing a one year moratorium in the Senate on bills containing earmarks.
Democrats trying to tag McCain as a friend of lobbyists may make for a sound bite today, but it is very far from the reality of the Real McCain.
From Gateway Pundit, free speech under fire in New Mexico as a Christian photographer is hauled before the Human Rights Commission for refusing to accept a job that would have required her to photograph a same-sex wedding.
"Death to . . . the Islamic Regime of Iran." Not the usual crowd chant in Tehran, but it was the one being shouted during a riot after the modesty police attempted to arrest a young woman for not dressing modestly enough to suit Ahmedinejad and his cronies. PJM has the story.
The Irish Elk weighs in on the NYT hit piece on McCain, providing an interesting historical anecdote. And TNOY has the scoop on new bombshell facts the NYT intends to expose in their next McCain piece.
At BizzyBlog, reporting on state government financial woes ignores the woeful over-spending that led to the problems in the first place.
Jules Crittenden’s site is unique in combining biting sarcasm with thoughtful commentary. And he is at it today with Gunga Din.
That said, as Rick Moran rightly states, "Enough with all this "Obama is a Muslim" crap." I concur, though I strongly disagree with Rick’s suggestion that the use of the word "Crusades" by Bush was a major faux pas. I refuse to bow down or rewrite history to serve anyone’s sensibilities – be they Muslim, Catholic or whatever. And the Crusades were merely the first time Christianity fought back against a Muslim onslaught that had been on-going for centuries.
The UN has finally identified the source of Palestinian terrorism. If you thought it might be Salafi Islam or Arab nationalism, think again. Its Israel, of course.
The Conservative Beach Girl still thinks that Hillary is in the race. But, she notes, if you want real Socialism in a hurry and not incrementally, Obama's your man.
From the Intergalactic Source of Truth, is supporting Kosovo independence a wise idea? I have not thought so. IGST offers some thoughtful commentary.
Victor David Hanson ponders whether the ailing Europe wants a President Obama. As he so eloquently puts it: Europe is in a classic paradox. Emotionally and culturally, Europeans are invested in a leftist such as Obama who reflects their soft socialist values and fuzzy multilateralism. But given their inherent military weakness and rough neighborhood, they have grown to count on an antithetical America — religious, conservative, militarily strong — that is not afraid to use force to fulfill its obligations to preserve the shared Western globalized system from its constant multifarious challenges.
Siggy needs to start doing stand-up. See his proposal for the new government seal.
Soccer Dad does an exceptional job of taking a semantic scalpel to the MSM’s agenda journalism.
From JoshuaPundit – Obama gets caught in another whopper. He does seem clueless about the military. Having led an infantry platoon and commanded an infantry company, I can assure you that Obama’s pronouncement gets just about ever possible wrong – all of which JP does a good job of cataloging.
From the Jawa Report, arch-terrorist Imad Mughniyah’s widow is blaming Syria for his assassination.
The Fulham Reactionary discusses the characteristics deemed by Child Services to make a parent unfit in a world dominated by socialists and multiculturalists. MK tells us the same socialists are planning on sex education for five year olds. Meanwhile, at Shield of Achilles, Hamas shows us a different message for children – its Bugs, the psychopathic bunny.
Dinah Lord examines the problem of pedophilia in the Maldives.
Seraphic Secret notes the power of movies to motivate, and the power of movies to in the hands of people with an agenda to spread lies. It is a double edged sword – but the answer to lies is a determination to make the truth known.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
