(March 14, 2008) – Like I was sayin… they love to spend our money.
For years, presidential candidate John McCain has been against pork barrel spending in congress. Pork spending is when a senator attaches an amendment to a spending bill to pay for pet projects. Yesterday, John McCain voted for a 1 year moratorium on pork spending which failed to pass. Obama and Clinton also voted for the bill even though they had over $390 million of earmarks in fiscal year 2008.
The issue that most Americans have with the practice is that the spending is attached to defence and other spending bills without debate. There is also a lack of accountability of who benefits the most from the pork spending. For instance, if my construction company donates or raises 100k for a political campaign and a pork item spends 10 million on a new cancer care wing of a hospital that my company builds, it pretty much is a payback at the expense of the American tax payer.
Citizens Against Government Waste, a non-partisan watch dog group, 71 senetors voted against the measure to stop pork spending for 1 year. From the site, you can contact your senator and let them know what you think.
Like I was sayin' 
For once I actually agree with McCain…he went on record after the vote saying that it was basically a election-year grandstand play. The issue was only given a few minutes for pro-con discussion and 10 minutes for voting.
I do think there needs to be something done about the excessive pork floating around, but this wasn’t it.
there is a problem with this of course.
i am a little unsure about senators..
but a congressman has the consitutional authority to appropriate money to their district.
hence they are called representatives.
cutting “pork” doesn’t cut spending. the same amount of revenue is still recieved. the only difference is who gets to spend the money? the legislative or executive?
one big reason pork is an issue now is because the federal government wants the money because money is tight. not only does the executive want more power, but the politicians want to look like they are doing something about wasteful spending.
but it doesn’t cut spending or reduce taxes in anyway.
if people want the money spent wisely then they need to pay attention to what their representatives are doing and not allow the federal government to have more control over their tax money.
Not necessarily. A defense appropriations bill total can be raised by earmarks. There is also accountability as these aren’t debated. Why should my tax dollars go to build a Charles Rangle Center for Policy as part of an Education bill? Senators also include such earmarks like Hillary Clinton’s Woodstock Museum.
Read the Bills Act
http://www.downsizedc.org/read_the_laws.shtml
Like I said: I am unsure about senators.
And yes. Accontability is important, hence the people should stop reelecting the same people.. But this is part of a larger issue. It is not solely specific to earmarks. The issue that remains is spending, and as you brought up, what the money is spent on.
Earmarks make up 2% of the federal budget. It is significant, but not nearly the largest issue.
Look at Ron Paul as an example. He votes no. Other representatives should follow his lead.
“Dr. Paul always votes “no” on the appropriations bills he requests earmarks for – as his critics concede – he is not involved in this negative aspect of the earmarking process. No amount of earmarks promised to him will convince him to vote “yes” on the bill. ”
“He supports forwarding the requests of his constituents that $400 million of funds that the federal government has already taken from them and designated for spending be returned to their district.”
If conservatives believe in self government, then they need to stop creating situations that require third parties to step in and do something about the issue.
All Democrats either through ignorance or criminal acts are lying Communist.
and are an enemy to this country. I hate communists.
Democrats as a whole think lying is normal and th at everyone is a liar. I guess if you lie every day and are comfortable with it then you would think everyone else does too.