Some interesting facts about “Earmarks”
The Bear on Dec 27 2010 at 6:11 am | Filed under: Culture of Corruption, Politics
In the 2011 House budget, the groups found that House Democrats requested 18,189 earmarks, which would cost the taxpayers a total of $51.7 billion, while House Republicans requested just 241 earmarks, for a total of $1 billion.
Where did those GOP earmark requests come from? Just four Republican lawmakers: South Carolina Rep. Henry Brown, who did not run for re-election this year; Louisiana Rep. Joseph Cao, who lost his bid for re-election; maverick Texas Rep. Ron Paul; and spending king Rep. Don Young of Alaska. The other Republican members of the House — 174 of them — requested a total of zero earmarks.
Still, the bottom line is that the House GOP’s nearly perfect renunciation of earmarks is striking. “For a voluntary moratorium, it was impressive that there were only four scofflaws,” says Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense.
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And the argument was that, if we didn’t ask for them, there would be that much less. So, are you saying there would have been a hundred billion? I don’t think so. There may have been some less, but what you’ve essentially done is to make this fund all-democrat-all-the-time, and taken away that funding tool from Republicans. It’s sort of like saying, hey, we’ll quit charging things to keep from maxing out our five thousand dollar credit card, but they won’t, so it still gets charged up. Big diff. Next time, instead of empty gestures that mean absolutely nothing, how about a REAL moratorium, one that’s in force for everyone, and enforced on everyone. NO EARMARKS. NO SPENDING THAT’S NOT VOTED ON BY ITSELF. We’re tired of the I’ll-vote-for-your-horrible-bill-if-you’ll-vote-for-my-horrible-bill attitudes.