Tag: Earmarks

Dirty Politics?

By now everyone, at least those interested in the country, have heard the debacle of the bridge in New Jersey……and because you have heard all the hoopla you have formed your opinion on the matter.  To some it is yet another scandal.  Others will see it as what some have called ‘dirty politics’.  And yet others may see it as some sort of retribution, politically that is…..

We all hate dirty politics and the art of political retribution because it makes our governmental system look corrupt……guess what?  IT IS!

Let me explain.

There could be NO bi-partisanship without it.  LBJ did it to get his programs passed.  Unfortunately, if you want it to change (there’s a word that gets overused) then the only good answer is change the system…..we will do that for a whole array of reason but the simplest one is because we don’t wanna.

Now you ask why, right?

Well since I am tired and want to make sleep I will turn you over to another…..

Chris Christie’s career in bullying is over: After Bridgegate, “Christie can’t be Christie anymore,” writes David Plotz at Slate. “That’s a shame,” because we need more corruption in American politics. It’s how things get done, Plotz notes: “Minor forms of corruption—votes bought with earmarks, traded favors—create a political flexibility that keeps the entire system from collapsing in moments of crisis.” Indeed, the end of earmarks under John Boehner has rendered the House less effective. Earmarks allow politicians to effectively buy the votes they need to push legislation through; President Obama got Arlen Specter’s stimulus backing through an earmark, and LBJ spent his presidency using them. Meanwhile, the ban on earmarks prevented Democrats from getting the votes for gun control reform. The real trouble with Christie: “The closing of the George Washington Bridge lanes was so stupid, so heavy-handed, so public,” and he was caught. “It suggests Christie actually isn’t an effective practitioner of kneecap politics,” Plotz writes. Click for his full column.

Whether it is favors, retribution, a ‘hit list’ or earmarks………It is called doing business as normal.  Get over it or do something about it!  Americans are too docile to change things…we had rather rant and rave then let the ‘tools’ go about their work a day lives doing business as usual……we are afraid of change…..we bitch about it and write about it but deep down we fear change….it is that simple!

The Death Of Earmarks?

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……

Earmarks UpDate

Earmarks are unrelated pet projects that members of Congress insert in spending bills.

The president maintained that earmarks can serve a useful purpose, but he said it is time for Congress and the White House to embrace a new set of guiding principles.

His remarks came the day after the Senate passed a $410 billion spending bill that included nearly 9,000 earmarks, which are projects designed to benefit individual legislators’ districts.

The earmarks in the spending bill are worth nearly $8 billion. Many critics have deemed them as wasteful, and some observers have questioned Obama’s pledge to end such spending.

The president also said that any earmark benefiting a for-profit private company “should be subject to the same competitive bidding requirements as other federal contracts.”

“The awarding of earmarks to private companies is the single most corrupting element of this practice,” he said.

“Private companies differ from the public entities that Americans rely on every day — schools, police stations, fire departments — and if they are seeking taxpayer dollars, then they should be evaluated with a higher level of scrutiny.”

Obama added that earmarks should “never, ever be traded for political favors.”

The president pledged to seek to eliminate any future earmark that has “no legitimate public purpose.”

Obama has broken with many of his more conservative critics in opposing an elimination of the earmarking process.

If done right, he argued Wednesday, earmarks “give legislators the opportunity to direct federal money to worthy projects that benefit people in their district, and that’s why I have opposed their outright elimination.”

He conceded, however, that some earmarks “have been used as a vehicle for waste, fraud and abuse. Projects have been inserted at the eleventh hour, without review, and sometimes without merit, in order to satisfy the political or personal agendas of a given legislator, rather than the public interest.”

Okay, all the lip flapping is done……..but will this be something the president can win?  Earmarks are the way that projects in the districts of the congressmen gets funded.  Will this hurt projects back home?

This is a piece of work to watch……who will be the loudest opponent and where will the saga end.

Iraq War Funding Bill

In case my readers are interested in just what this bill contains.

Highlights of a Senate bill passed Thursday to pay for military and diplomatic operations in Iraq and Afghanistan into next spring. Key provisions would:

_Provide $165 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of this year and several months into 2009, when there is a new president.

_Extend unemployment benefits for workers whose benefits have run out. The extension would cover up to 13 weeks nationwide and an additional 13 weeks in states with unemployment rates of 6 percent or greater, including Michigan, Alaska and California. The cost is estimated at $11.1 billion over 10 years.

_Expand education for active-duty members of the armed forces since Sept. 11, 2001. Under a formula related to years of service, the measure aims to provide the equivalent of a four-year education at a state university. The cost is estimated at $51.6 billion over the next decade.

_Block new Bush administration regulations that would cut federal spending on Medicaid health care for the poor and disabled by $13 billion over the next five years.

_Provide $8.7 billion in foreign aid and international food assistance over 2008-2009, including $450 million for Mexico to combat drug trafficking, $100 million below the administration’s request.

_Provide $5.8 billion to strengthen New Orleans levees, as requested by the administration, plus $3.1 billion to help Louisiana “match” federal contributions, and $1 billion for Mississippi coastal protection.

_Provide $3.1 billion for military base construction and base closure accounts.

_Provide $1.2 billion for science and health programs, including $200 million for NASA, $200 million for the National Science Foundation to bolster U.S. competitiveness, and $400 million for the National Institutes of Health.

_Provide $400 million for rural schools.

_Provide $451 million to rebuild roads and bridges damaged by natural disasters.

_Provide $490 million in anti-crime grants to states and local governments.

_Provide $437 million for trauma centers for veterans to help their recovery from war-related injuries, especially traumatic brain injury.

Just take a look at the earmarks that were added onto the bill–does that seem right to you?