To: Mephisto who wrote (4069 ) 7/6/2001 8:09:57 AM From: jttmab Read Replies (1) | Respond to One of my favorite dudes is Tom Delay. Very religious by all accounts. Certainly a man of moral majority values. Apple pie and all that stuff.washingtonpost.com In pushing his tax cut, Bush had no stronger ally than Rep. Tom DeLay, the sharp-tongued majority whip from Sugar Land, Tex. "Republicans want you to keep more of your hard-earned money," DeLay told reporters on May 3. "The Democratic leadership wants to take away more of what you earn to pay for their big-government spending." According to figures compiled by congressional staff, House members have requested 18,898 "earmarks" -- targeted expenditures for home-district projects such as highways, dams, parks and museums -- in the spending bills making their way through Congress. If all were approved, the cost would amount to $279 billion -- almost the size of the Pentagon's annual budget. But as the number of earmarks has increased sharply in recent years, rising more than threefold since Republicans won control of Congress in 1995 , some say the practice has spun out of control.
