Conservs and small government politicians had a victory recently with the limiting of earmarks…the Congress smiled and the peasants danced……but wait! Could this been a bit premature?
Killing earmarks in an era of big government and bigger deficits sure sounded like great conservative politics at the party last night, but none other than the House GOP is waking up with a hangover, wondering “What were we thinking?” As Politico reports, it turns out that ix-naying porky projects like the bridge to nowhere also meant defunding a lot of legitimate bridges to somewhere. And it has the likes of Michele Bachmann and Steve King now scrambling to get cash for transportation projects in their districts.
Potential workarounds include revising the definition of earmark, lobbying executive agencies for cash (dubbed “phone marking” and “letter marking”), and sneaking funding through the back door of the Senate, which has no such ban. “This isn’t trying to be too cute by half of what is an earmark and what isn’t,” says Bachmann….
Too cute for their own good………I thought this would come back to bite them in the butt…….change the definition? An earmark is an earmark…..they want to have their cake and eat the cash……and keep their lobbyists buds in caviar……
Yup!
The cute part of this is that the GOP has the biggest porkers…..and now they have been too clever than they should….tee hee
Oh, yes. I get that and it follows the old principle by which I often follow – give the assholes enough rope and they’ll eventually hang themselves with it. Seems like they just did that. But will ordinary people notice that?
But they will find a way out of it….by re-defining the term so they can have that cake and much away….