The demise of the bridge to nowhere notwithstanding, Sen. Ted Stevens and other Republicans remain the kings of pork-barrel spending, proving that GOP mastery of "earmarks" can withstand public scorn, a president's rebuke and even a Democratic takeover of Congress.
The Senate's two biggest sponsors of this year's pet spending projects are Republicans Stevens of Alaska and Thad Cochran of Mississippi, according to preliminary reviews of fiscal 2008 spending bills by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan group. Two of the House's three biggest claimants of earmarks also are Republicans: Bill Young of Florida and Jerry Lewis of California, the group found.
Their continued success at steering billions of taxpayer dollars to their constituents is all the more impressive - or arguably hypocritical - since President Bush and other prominent Republicans sharpened their criticisms of earmarks after Democrats took over the House and Senate majorities in January....
...about 9,000 earmarks costing $7.4 billion found their way into the final spending measure.
Stevens and Cochran retain their earmarking clout even in the minority.Cochran sponsored $773 million in current earmarks, while Stevens claimed $502 million, according to the Taxpayers for Common Sense unofficial tally. Both of them outdistanced Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., perhaps the Senate's most legendary master of pork-barrel politics.
Lawmakers said Stevens and Cochran outpaced all other senators because Democrats tend to spread their share of earmarks more widely than do Republicans....
...Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said lawmakers could not possibly know what they were approving in the hastily completed spending bill, packed with "unnecessary, wasteful, run-of-the-mill pork barrel projects" amounting to "a slush fund for the appropriators."
In a lengthy statement submitted for the Congressional Record this week, McCain warned: "It will be a long time before all of the hidden provisions in this legislation are exposed."
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Bush decries the budget pork ... biggest earmarks are from Republicans
Monday, December 3, 2007
The cost of politicians
...One of the great ironies of the American Revolution is that the colonists, who rebelled against British-imposed taxes lower than those of the mother country, were in reality living in the lowest tax polity in the history of civilized mankind. Needless to say, once the United States had achieved independence, the taxation on its people was never as low again, even though for the country's first century and a half most US governments pursued admirably frugal policies.
....Finally the third area, economically counterproductive decisions made in pursuit of non-economic goals. Try World War I for a start, on the parts of both Britain and the United States. Neither had anything to gain economically or even politically from participation in the war, yet in both cases political blundering in pursuit of no well-established principle caused untold economic as well as personal harm. Similarly, the 2003 invasion of Iraq had no clear economic justification - if it was undertaken to keep oil prices down, then why are they running at four times their level when the operation was undertaken?
...The solutions are difficult, but the problem is there and appears to be getting worse. The number of lobbyists in Washington has doubled since 2000 and the annual number of Congressional spending earmarks has multiplied by 10 since 1994. As we turn our jaded attention once again to the political process and the selection of a government for 2009-13, it is worth remembering: There must be a better way."
