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Politics : I Will Continue to Continue, to Pretend.... -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	9/25/2005 2:55:08 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Mark Steyn unleashes his humor to address what has a lot of people griping. Betsy's Page We're dissatisfied with both parties. The Democrats have lurched so far into Soros territory that they've left many of those who might not be in line with the Goerge Soros-Michael Moore-Cindy Sheehan line of thought. <<< American politics seems to have dwindled down to a choice between a big government party and a big permanently-out-of-government party. The Senate Democrats had two months to cook up a reason to vote against John Roberts and the best California's Dianne Feinstein could manage come the big day was that she'd wanted to hear him "talking to me as a son, a husband and a father." In that case, get off the judiciary committee and go audition for ''Return To Bridges of Madison County,'' or ''What Women Want 2'' ("Mel Gibson is nominated to the Supreme Court but, despite being sensitive and a good listener, is accused of being a conservative theocrat"). That slab of meaningless emotive exhibitionism would make a good epitaph for the Democratic Party. The reality of life as a bigshot Dem is that what John Roberts is like "as a father" is less important than what George Soros is like as a sugar daddy. The more money shoveled at the party by Moveon.org, Hollywood, NOW and other unrepresentative fringes, the less it's able to see over the big pile of green to the electorate beyond. A party as thoroughly Sorosized as the Democrats is perforce downsized. >>> But those of us on the right are also dissatisfied with what the Republicans have wrought in their control of the country. Bush seems to be competing in how much money he can promise people whether they be seniors wanting a drug program or those in New Orleans who want the federal government to hand over a couple of hundred billion dollars to let them build back exactly as they wish. And the GOP in Congress have just gone overboard in spending on pork. They've become the party of Don Young's Bridge to Nowhere. <<< Ambitious presidents seize on extreme events to change the culture, as FDR did, using the Depression to transform the nature of the federal government. In allowing the eco-crazies to get away with prioritizing the world's biggest mosquito herd over Alaskan oil, and the teaching establishment with insisting that there's nothing wrong with the most overfunded public education system in the world that can't be fixed with even more wasted dollars, and the bureaucracy with creating an instantly sclerotic jobs-for-life federalized airport security (that just walked off the job in Houston), the Republicans missed their post-9/11 opportunity. Instead of changing the nature of the federal government, the Republican majority in Washington seems to be changing the nature of the Republican Party. The Democrats' approach to government has been Sorosized, the GOP's has been supersized. Some choice. >>> Peggy Noonan addressed this same point about how the Republicans have become the party of big spenders in her column on Thursday. <<< George W. Bush, after five years in the presidency, does not intend to get sucker-punched by the Democrats over race and poverty. That was the driving force behind his Katrina speech last week. He is not going to play the part of the cranky accountant--"But where's the money going to come from?"--while the Democrats, in the middle of a national tragedy, swan around saying "Republicans don't care about black people," and "They're always tightwads with the poor." In his Katrina policy the president is telling Democrats, "You can't possibly outspend me. Go ahead, try. By the time this is over Dennis Kucinich will be crying uncle, Bernie Sanders will be screaming about pork." That's what's behind Mr. Bush's huge, comforting and boondogglish plan to spend $200 billion or $100 billion or whatever--"whatever it takes"--on Katrina's aftermath. >>> She goes on to examine all the spending that Bush has approved or initiated in his years as president and wonders what the point is of being conservative anymore. What is the point of just being a party that competes with the Democrats in how much money and federal control they can throw at problems? <<< The Republican (as opposed to conservative) default position when faced with criticism of the Bush administration is: But Kerry would have been worse! The Democrats are worse! All too true. The Democrats right now remind me of what the veteran political strategist David Garth told me about politicians. He was a veteran of many campaigns and many campaigners. I asked him if most or many of the politicians he'd worked with had serious and defining political beliefs. David thought for a moment and then said, "Most of them started with philosophy. But they wound up with hunger." That's how the Democrats seem to me these days: unorganized people who don't know what they stand for but want to win, because winning's pleasurable and profitable. But saying The Bush administration is a lot better than having Democrats in there is not an answer to criticism, it's a way to squelch it. Which is another Bridge to Nowhere. >>> A lot of conservatives are too fed up with the growth of government under Bush's watch to argue anymore that it is worthwhile to support Bush's spending if that is what it takes to keep him in power to do what we like in economic and foreign policy and with judicial appointments. This doesn't mean that conservatives don't want the federal government to help the victims of Katrina or to help rebuild New Orleans. We're just disgusted taht there doesn't seem to be any effort to cut other spending in order to pay for that aid. That was the whole inspiration behind Truth Laid Bear's and Instapundit's creation of the Porkbusters site. Right now the tally is close to 50 billion dollars. I suspect that a lot of people would support politicians who said to their constituents: "Look, I wanted to get the federal government to help with this or that in our community, but, in light of the unprecedented challenge our country is facing with the aftermath of Katrina, I am going to vote to take that money for our local bridge, light rail program, bike path, etc. out of the budget for this year and to channel that money into aiding those in the Gulf coast who are so in need. I hope my constituents will understand that being your representative means making tough choices sometimes for the good of the entire country not just our local community." I think that such an approach would be applauded by people on both sides of the ideological divide. However, it just isn't happening. Compare the list on the Porkbusters page of the money that people online are suggesting for cuts and then go over and see how few politicians have been willing to step up to the plate and volunteer to support cutting out pork. As my daughter pointed out, it's a pretty bizarro world where Nancy Pelosi is showing more responsibility on spending than Tom DeLay. Ramesh Ponnuru reminded us taht Reagan had tried to veto a highway bill and his veto was overridden. So I recognize that it's mighty hard to eliminate pork in spending. Pork is the lubricant that gets bills passed. I'm sure that all the earmarks in the Transportation Bill represent a lot of trading that went on for a whole host of other issues from the War in Iraq to CAFTA to who knows what. But can't these folks even try just the teensiest bit? betsyspage.blogspot.com suntimes.com opinionjournal.com truthlaidbear.com truthlaidbear.com aconstrainedvision.blogspot.com corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	9/26/2005 8:28:06 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Getting the Message? Power Line Bill Frist's chief budget aide said today that federal spending on Hurricane Katrina reconstruction and relief may total only $100 billion, not the $200 billion that has been widely reported: <<< At a conference on Katrina reconstruction, [Bill] Hoagland said an estimate frequently cited on Capitol Hill that federal recovery costs would hit $200 billion "has no basis in analysis." He warned that Congress, which in six days this month approved $62.3 billion in emergency aid to Gulf Coast states, should be more careful before rushing through another disaster assistance package that the White House is expected to request in October. >>> Hoagland also expressed support for balancing at least some of the new spending with cuts elsewhere, although he warned that this would be "tough." I suppose it will be tough, unless Senators and Congressmen perceive that there is a groundswell of public insisence on fiscal responsibility in connection with hurricane relief. Via Power Line News. powerlineblognews.com powerlineblog.com go.reuters.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	9/27/2005 2:59:23 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Appalled over pork Bruce Bartlett townhall.com September 27, 2005 Last week I had an interesting experience. I was asked to testify before a hearing of the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. I made it clear to them that I was a Republican, but they said they wanted me anyway. I suppose that they knew that I have become very disturbed by the Republican Party’s fiscal policy and they presumed that I would attack it. I did not disappoint them. I explained that I am not particularly a deficit hawk, nor do the size of the Bush tax cuts bother me. What really bothers me is the orgy of spending by Republicans. It is just appalling that the recent highway bill had 5,000 “earmarks” in it. These are almost without exception, utterly unjustified pork barrel projects. I am further appalled by President’s Bush’s unwillingness to use his veto pen to maintain some semblance of fiscal discipline. He is the first president to serve a full term without vetoing anything since John Quincy Adams, who served from 1824 to 1828. Adams perhaps had the excuse that his father, President John Adams (1796-1800), didn’t veto anything, either. But President Bush cannot use that excuse. His father vetoed 29 bills in his four years in office (1988-1992). When I complain about this to the rapidly dwindling number of friends I have in the White House, they always tell me that it is very hard to veto bills when a Congress controlled by your own party passes them. But this excuse is just total humbug, as the Brits might say. Franklin D. Roosevelt vetoed a record 372 bills, every one of them passed by Congresses controlled by his party. Other Democrats have also shown no unwillingness to veto bills passed by Democratic Congresses. John F. Kennedy vetoed 12 bills, Lyndon Johnson vetoed 16, and Jimmy Carter vetoed 13. But pork barrel projects—even tens of billions of dollars worth of them—are not what has dug us into a fiscal hole. It is the rapidly escalating cost of entitlement programs. President Bush is well aware of the problems in this area. He eloquently explained the deteriorating fiscal condition of the Social Security program in many speeches this year, as part of his effort to reform that program and stabilize its finances for future generations. He was unsuccessful in large part, I believe, because he made the finances of the Medicare program—which was in far worse shape than Social Security to begin with—vastly worse by adding a huge, unfunded drug benefit. The Medicare program was already bankrupt and should have been the primary focus of Bush’s reform effort. Instead, he not only ignored Medicare’s looming crisis, he made it an order of magnitude worse. By contrast, Social Security is in great financial shape and nowhere near the imminent collapse that faces Medicare in just a few short years. Here are the facts as reported by the Social Security and Medicare actuaries earlier this year. The unfunded liability of Social Security in perpetuity is $11.1 trillion. The unfunded liability of Medicare is $68.1 trillion, of which $18.2 trillion is accounted for just by the recently enacted drug benefit. In short, even if President Bush had been successful in enacting a perfect Social Security reform bill, one that completely eliminated that program’s unfunded liability, we would still be $7 trillion worse off as a result of the extraordinarily ill-considered drug benefit. To put it another way, we could repeal the drug benefit, finance Social Security forever with no benefit cuts or tax increases, and still cut $7 trillion off our national indebtedness. Why the Democrats don’t pick up on this idea is a mystery to me. Almost none of them supported the drug bill—on Friday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) reminded me that he had voted against it—so they have nothing to lose. The program hasn’t really even taken effect yet, so no one would lose anything they now have. Seniors would lose only a future benefit that few seem to be keen on anyway. Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, told CBS News last week that the growing costs of the Iraq war and the new burdens created by hurricanes Katrina and Rita mean that the drug bill must be reopened for discussion. “We’ve got to cancel it, go back to square one,” he said. “It was a bad idea to start with.” Unfortunately, President Bush’s reaction to any suggestion that the drug bill even be postponed has been outrage and the promise of a veto. “I signed the Medicare reform proudly,” he said earlier this year, “and any attempt to…take away…prescription drug coverage under Medicare will meet my veto.” It would be ironic if the only bill of his presidency he absolutely should not veto became the only one he did veto. Bruce Bartlett is a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, a Townhall.com partner organization. ©2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc. townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	9/27/2005 4:53:52 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Who ya gonna call? Power Line I confess to being amused by the internet pork-busters campaign. It's not that eliminating pork is a bad thing. But some of the pork-busters seem to feel that they are trying to save the House and Senate Republicans from themselves. I suspect it's more accurate to say that pork-busting presents the scenario most likely to lead to the Republicans losing control of Congress. It's a cliche of our politics that voters dislike Congress but like their own representative. Indeed, Donald Lambro in the Washington Times argues that it is this phenomenon that provides Republicans with hope that they will lose, at most, a handful of seats in 2006. Lambro's piece also provides the explanation (if one is needed) why individual representatives are popular at home, while Congress as a whole is disliked: <<< The House races are run on local issues, not national issues," says Carl Forti, communications director of the National Republican Congressional Committee. >>> Substitute the word "pork" for "local issues," and you'll understand why I find the pork-busters campaign amusing. JOHN demurs, in part: There is a basic difference between Republicans and Democrats when it comes to pork. No significant portion of the Democratic base objects in principle to ballooning government spending. Moreover, a Democratic politician who brings home the bacon can often attract votes from Republicans who value pork over principle, and thereby get elected even in a Republican-leaning state. (Tom Daschle was a perfect example.) So, for a Democrat, the issue is easy: pork is all good. Republican Congressmen and Senators are in a different position. A significant number of their voters, probably a majority, prefer smaller government and oppose government waste on principle. Further, almost all Republican politicians have themselves endorsed limited government principles as candidates. So for a Republican politician, the calculus can be different. People like pork--"local issues," as Paul says--but in many districts, a Republican politician who offends a big chunk of his base, while looking like a hypocrite in the process, could be in trouble. Besides, most Republican politicians are sincere when they talk about cutting federal spending and eliminating waste. While aware of the political benefit of bacon, they are at best ambivalent about it. Does that mean the Porkbusters movement can succeed? History, of course, is not promising. Over the last generation we have seen the triumph of small-government rhetoric coexisting with the greatest explosion of federal domestic spending in history. But it would be premature to write off the anti-pork effort. These days, with the major parties in near-balance, elections are mostly about turnout. And many observers think that conditions in 2006 may combine to depress Republican turnout, enabling the Democrats to capture the House, and perhaps the Senate. Conviction on the part of the Republican base that small-government Republicanism is dead could very well be the last straw that puts the Democrats over the top. So, out of a mixture of genuine conviction and equally genuine self-interest, I think there is a bare possibility that the Republican majorities might actually find enough cuts to set off a substantial portion of the prospective Katrina spending, while at the same time eliminating the most egregious waste from the hurricane appropriations. powerlineblog.com washingtontimes.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	9/28/2005 9:14:48 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Good news from Capitol Hill By noemail@noemail.org (krempasky) RedState.org According to a source on Capitol Hill, Majority Whip Roy Blunt has warmed significantly to Operation Offset and huddled with a group of RSC members yesterday in support of pushing many of their proposals to reign in federal spending. While the Medicare Rx benefit and the highway earmarks appear to be off the table, much seems to be on. Blunt ought to be encouraged and praised for being the first member of Leadership to admit tacitly that his team screwed up by attacking the RSC and to commit seriously to finding specific offsets. Unfortunately, as powerful as he is, Blunt can't get it done alone, and the American people have yet to get a sense for whether the President, the Speaker, and the rest of the Congressional Leaders are truly committed to the enterprise or merely going through the motions to escape the bad headlines (i.e. will the Speaker keep a future vote open for three hours until 218 votes finally materialize like he did on Medicare). Hat tip to Mr. Blunt for at least being willing to press the case for trying to his Leadership brethren. redstate.org redstate.org

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	9/29/2005 11:09:21 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

PORK UPDATE: Looks like we're seeing signs of awakening sense: Instapundit <<< The Senate was up to its old tricks Monday evening. It prepared to pass, without debate and under a procedure requiring unanimous consent, a federal infusion of $9 billion into state Medicaid programs under the pretext of Katrina relief. The bill, drafted in secret under bipartisan auspices, was stopped cold when Republican Sen. John Ensign voiced his objection. . . . Fear has enveloped Republicans who see themselves handing the banner of fiscal integrity to the Democrats. The GOP is losing the rhetoric war, even though Democrats mostly push for higher domestic spending, because Republicans, while standing firm against tax increases, have also declined to cut spending. Fearing the worst in the 2006 and 2008 elections, Republican senators who would not be expected to do so are looking to McCain to lead the party back to fiscal responsibility. . . . President Bush's opposition to the Grassley-Baucus bill was meaningless. Bush could not kill the bill by objecting, but any senator could, and Ensign did. Ensign noted that Congress had appropriated an extra $62 billion in the wake of Katrina. >>> Read the whole thing. suntimes.com instapundit.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	10/20/2005 4:26:45 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

"A Hill to Die On" Power Line That's what Red State calls the Coburn Amendment. The Coburn Amendment may prove to be a historic rallying point for the forces of limited government and fiscal sanity. Then again, it may not. But it's a good place to start. The amendment is very simple: it proposes to redirect the ridiculous $220 million earmarked for the Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" to Hurricane Katrina relief; specifically, reconstruction of the Twin Spans Bridge that connects New Orleans with Slidell, Louisiana. Red State says that the "Bridge to Nowhere" will cost enough to buy every one of the 50 residents of Gravina Island a Lear Jet. It's hard to see how anyone will justify voting against Coburn's amendment, so the forces of reaction are reported to be fighting to keep it from coming to a vote. If there is to be a war, why not let it begin here? Write your Congressman. Via Power Line News. powerlineblognews.com powerlineblog.com redstate.org

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	10/21/2005 1:13:18 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

It's gut-check time for the Republicans on the budget by Townhall.com Editors townhall.com Oct 20, 2005 Congress hasn’t reopened a budget act by amendment since 1977. And were it not for the leadership of Mike Pence (R-IN) and the Republican Study Committee, that streak would have continued through 2005. Like thieves in the night, Congress avoids returning to the scene of the crime. Because budget acts are composed of mandatory spending, Congress is especially reluctant to reopen the books to find savings. But thanks to a recent uprising among fiscally conservative House Republicans, Congress will have to do just that this year. Much is made publicly about pork barrel discretionary spending, but it is the mandatory (e.g. Medicare) spending that most jeopardizes America’s fiscal health. By reopening the budget act, Congress is forced to change the government spending baseline, leading to huge savings over several years rather than eliminating a single highway project in Tiny Town, Oklahoma. That’s why Congress rarely reopens a passed budget act. And that’s also how America’s fiscal house gets out of order, as it is right now. When Hurricane Katrina struck in late August, things only got worse. Congress rushed to Washington and appropriated $60 billion in relief funds. True to form, Congress merely added the $60 billion to an already burgeoning $8 trillion deficit. Liberals smelled blood. Now is the time for higher taxes to pay for bigger, bolder government, they said. Republican leadership, meanwhile, was content to gorge on a taxpayer financed fiscal feast. Then Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) even declared an “ongoing victory” in the war against budget fat. Mr. DeLay and some of his Republican friends, it appeared, needed a lesson in fiscal conservatism. Federal spending must be viewed as a zero sum game. Limited resources means that every dollar allocated to project A is one less allocated to project B, C, D, and on down the line. This approach is particularly apt in the wake of an unprecedented national disaster. But it rarely occurs in practice – even in a Republican controlled Congress. That’s what makes Pence and the RSC – a group of fiscal conservatives – so valuable. As Katrina reconstruction estimates trickled in, RSC members called for dollar-for-dollar cuts in mandatory spending to foot the bill. So as the generals fled and bent under pressure, the foot soldiers stood firm and fought the good fight against runaway spending. Who’s in charge here? Republican leadership tried to quiet this uprising by saying that cuts in Medicaid and other federal spending were “off the table.” They were wrong to do so. And in any manner, it was too late: what the RSC calls “Operation Offset” had already been launched. The RSC should be commended for it’s willingness to reign in recalcitrant leadership. And it is encouraging to see that Republican leaders are this week exploring ways to cut as much as $50 billion from the FY 2006 budget. Still, more needs to be done. Republican leadership must embrace not only the specific proposals of Operation Offset, but also the philosophy behind it. A battle between two free spending, big government parties is one that Republicans will never win. Limited government must once again become a hallmark of the Republican Party – even if that is something George W. Bush is unwilling to embrace. We certainly appreciate the efforts of the RSC, but we’re disappointed that publications such as the Washington Post can refer to them as a “faction” of fiscal conservatives. If fiscal conservatives are merely a “faction” of the Republican Party then we’re in serious trouble. We must then dig ourselves out of this mess, dollar by dollar. The RSC will lead the way, will the Republican Party follow? townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	10/21/2005 1:28:04 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Via Instapundit "It's only taken a decade or so, but suddenly there's momentum in Congress for spending restraint. We'll be watching the fine print, but you can tell Republicans are worried about complaints from conservative voters because for a change they're trying to act, well, like Republicans." http://instapundit.com/archives/026292.php opinionjournal.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	10/21/2005 3:01:17 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

A sad day for taxpayers. Clarity: It's A Good Thing Power Line Senator Tom Coburn's effort to de-fund the Bridge to Nowhere, along with several other indefensible pork barrel projects, failed today by an 82-15 vote. Which is discouraging, of course, in that it shows how far both parties are from either fiscal sanity, or an appreciation of the proper role of the federal government. On the other hand, it was a clarifying moment. The Associated Press says: <<< [I]n the tradition-bound Senate, Coburn was taking on an unwritten rule that one senator does not attack the projects sought by another. >>> To tell you the truth, I'm not sure I was aware of that rule. I guess I always assumed that both the Senate and the House made some pretense of trying to spend the taxpayers' money wisely, for the benefit of the nation as a whole. So at least we now know where we stand. This comment by Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was also illuminating in its absurdity: <<< I've been here now almost 37 years. This is the first time I have seen any attempt of any senator to treat my state in a way different from any other state. I don't kid people. If the Senate decides ... to take money from our state, I will resign from this body. >>> When Stevens talks about treating Alaska differently from any other state, he isn't referring to the astonishing amount of federal money that is spent there. No, his definition of "treating differently" is subjecting his own pork requests to any rational scrutiny. And when Stevens talks about "taking money from" Alaska, he means deciding not to spend $220 million to build a bridge for the benefit of 50 people. This statement, by a Republican Senator, is analogous to claims by liberals that when taxes are cut, the federal government is giving money to the rich. So now we know: there are only fifteen members of the Senate who are unwilling to waste the taxpayers' money on even the most frivolous of projects. Let's see what we can do about the other 85. powerlineblog.com news.yahoo.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	10/22/2005 2:03:30 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Mr. Smith Has Returned to Washington and His Name is Tom Coburn by Mark Tapscott townhall.com Oct 22, 2005 That was quite a shock wave rocking the hallowed halls of the U.S. Senate Thursday when a freshman senator from Oklahoma stood on the floor of "the world's greatest deliberative body" and challenged his colleagues to end the charade. The charade of endlessly mouthing the cliches of fiscal responsibility, that is, while carrying the shameful practice of log-rolling - "I'll vote for your pet spending project no matter how bad it is if you vote for my pet spending project, no matter how bad it is" – to record levels. Members of Congress call it "congressional courtesy." Weary taxpayers don't. Closely related to logrolling is the congressional maxim that "to get along, you have to go along," especially if you are a freshman or from a small state. Coburn is both a freshman and from a state with only a handful of electoral votes. Senators and Representatives have been logrolling since the First Congress, of course, but never before with the intensity of the current GOP-led Congress. Appropriations bills now routinely gain approval with hundreds or thousands of "earmarks," which is Hill-talk for pork barrel projects inserted by individual members to benefit their district or state. But then came Hurricane Katrina and Coburn, who previously served time during the Clinton administration in the U.S. House before taking a voluntary term-limit induced sabbatical before returning to win a close election to the Senate in 2004. Frankly, Coburn hadn’t made much of a splash in the Senate until this week. He stood on the Senate floor Thursday and committed the unpardonable sin of not going along to get along. He offered amendments requiring that previously approved earmarks favored by colleagues be cancelled and the tax dollars instead spent on hurricane recovery. There wasn't much money at stake in the particular projects targeted by Coburn, but it was the principle that mattered. What Coburn got in response was pure bipartisan outrage. Sen. Patty Murray, the very liberal Oregon Democrat, warned that any senator supporting the Coburn amendments would find projects in his or her own state getting the evil eye by annoyed colleagues who don't want to rock the log-rolling boat. And Alaska's Ted Stevens, the Old Bull Republican moderate who has been one of the biggest obstacles in Congress to conservative reform since the Reagan administration, stood on the floor and thundered that he would leave the Senate if the Coburn proposal passed. Stevens needn't have worried, at least for now. His colleagues, many of whom learned long ago not to cross him, marched in lockstep to soundly defeat Coburn's proposal. In fact, only 15 brave senators said aye when the roll was called. The only surprise was how many familiar conservative names were among the 82 senators opposing Coburn. This speaks volumes about why so little actual conservative reform has been achieved since 1994 despite all those GOP majorities. Too often, they have talked the talk without walking it. So what's next? No matter what they think, the future doesn't depend on the Ted Stevens or Patty Murrays of the congressional world. Tom Coburn can be in the driver’s seat.. He forced the Senate to decide Thursday which was more important - building a shelter for dogs and cats in RINO Republican Sen. Lincoln Chaffee's home state or helping the good people in Louisiana and Mississippi made homeless by Hurricane Katrina. Ted Stevens' purple rage and Patty Murray's veiled threats represent the corrupt essence of Establishment Washington politics and Thursday we saw what that establishment truly cares about. It isn't people without roofs over their heads in Louisiana or Mississippi. The question now is will Coburn remain steadfast? Senate rules still give individual senators significant leverage to force legislative showdowns. If Coburn stands his ground today, odds are the American people will take care of tomorrow just fine. Coburn understands that, which is why he is just the man for the job. He isn't here to stay here; he came back to Washington to do what he can as long as he can to help change America for the better. That's why the shouting and blustering on the Senate floor only confirms for Coburn the rightness of his path. The timing of all this must be divine; how else to explain a doctor with nothing to lose and a disaster of biblical proportions appearing at exactly the right place at the right time to make possible the right decisions? Go get'em Tom! Mark Tapscott, a veteran newspaper journalist, is Director of the Center for Media and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation, a Townhall.com Gold Partner. townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	10/22/2005 2:11:51 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

The Stevens Spectacle: Time for Conservatives to Put Their Mouths Where Their Money Is by Todd Manzi HUMAN EVENTS Posted Oct 21, 2005 What a pathetic spectacle it was to see Republican Ted Stevens defending his “bridge to nowhere” on the Senate floor. Like a spoiled little kid he said: <<< “I’m going to put the Senate on Notice. If the Senate decides to discriminate against our state, to take money only from our state, I’ll resign from this body.” >>> Senate Republicans had a golden opportunity to save millions of tax payer dollars and get rid of their Party’s version of Robert Byrd. They blew it. Republican Senator Tom Coburn from Oklahoma offered the amendment to de-fund the $223,000,000 Alaskan bridge that will connect a population of about 50 to a population of about 8,000. Ten other Republican Senators and four Democrat Senators stood by Coburn and voted for his amendment. Now it’s time for conservatives throughout the nation to back up Coburn and turn up the heat on the forty-two non-Alaskan Republican Senators who voted the wrong way. Why did Senator McCain sit this vote out? He portrays himself as a budget hawk, but he didn’t go on the record for the Coburn amendment. Three and a half hours earlier at 2:30 p.m. he voted on a different matter, but at 6:00 p.m. he skipped this vote. Senators Brownback and Frist should be asked if they think supporting Ted Stevens’ appetite for pork will help them win the Republican Presidential Primary. Senators Shelby (Alabama), Cochran (Mississippi), Lott (Mississippi), Cornyn (Texas), and Hutchison (Texas) should be asked if building the “bridge to nowhere” is more important than repairing hurricane damage. All of the other Republican Senators who voted down Coburn’s amendment should be forced to explain why this is a good expenditure of hard earned tax dollars. Perhaps they are frightened of the all-powerful Ted Stevens because he “warned” them that he would be like a “wounded bull” if they took away his bridge. Are they scared they might lose their pork? President Bush should be asked if he is proud that he actively campaigned against the extremely fiscally conservative Pat Toomey so that Senator Specter could get reelected and vote against restraining spending. Conservatives have a small window of opportunity to end the hurricane of pork that scatters our tax dollars every year. Stopping Senator Stevens would be a good start. After the Coburn amendment failed, Senator Stevens had the audacity to issue a press release stating: <<< “I came here and swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. …This amendment is an offense to me. It is not only an offense to me; it is a threat to my whole state, to every person in my state.” >>> Congressman Jeff Flake issued an interesting press release two weeks earlier that indicates the Senator from Alaska is a serial porker: <<< “This week’s egregious earmark: $10,000,000 for the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board. The Board used the earmark to issue a $500,000 grant to Alaska Airlines to custom paint the image of a huge king salmon onto one of their 737 passenger planes.” >>> It takes a lot of nerve for Senator Stevens to claim he upholds the Constitution. It is impossible to make an argument that the Constitution authorizes Congress to spend $500,000 to paint a fish on a plane. An interesting side note is that Senator Stevens’ son sits on the Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board. A good rule of thumb would be that once a Senator makes it possible to squander a half million of hard earned tax dollars to paint a plane, he loses his right to ask for any spending for his state, period. It’s time for conservatives to make it very clear to all of the Republican Senators that we are more offended than Senator Stevens is. They should know that we think pork-barrel spending is a threat to all of the states and every person in the country. Let’s tell them in no uncertain terms that we are not interested in paying for Senator Stevens’ bridge or the fish that fly over it. Todd Manzi is a freelance writer living in Mosinee, Wisconsin. He can be contacted through his website (www.toddmanzi.com). humaneventsonline.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	10/26/2005 10:17:16 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Pigging out by John Stossel townhall.com Oct 26, 2005 What Congress did is disgusting. You heard what the Senate did to Tom Coburn's attempt to impose some sanity on spending. How do they live with themselves? Years ago, interviewing economist Walter Williams for a show ABC News called "Greed," I was perplexed when Williams said, "a thief is more moral than a congressman; when a thief steals your money, he doesn't demand you thank him." That was silly hyperbole, I thought, but watching Congress spend, I see that I was naive and Williams was right. When the Democrats held power, I confronted Sen. Robert Byrd about wasting our money on "Robert Byrd Highway"-type projects in West Virginia. His answer was as arrogant as he was: "I would think that the national media could rise above the temptation of being clever, decrepitarian critics who twaddlize, just as what you're doing right here." "Twaddlizing?" I asked. "Trivializing serious matters," he explained. I persisted, "Is there no limit? Are you not at all embarrassed about how much you got?" Byrd glared at me in silence, and finally demanded, angrily, "Are you embarrassed when you think you're working for the good of the country? Does that embarrass you?" The Republicans promised to change the culture. Democrats sold panic. "Don't vote for them! They're going to shrink government and take away your favorite programs!" They needn't have worried. The Republicans got elected, but if the Democrats' goal was to expand the government, they were the real winners. Once Republicans were in power, they started spending money even faster than the Democrats did. Big spender Ted Stevens responded to Coburn's good suggestion to kill a "Bridge to Nowhere" with a tantrum on the Senate floor: He threatened to resign and "be taken out of here on a stretcher." Good! Sen. Stevens, please go. I'll even help carry the stretcher. Unfortunately, Congress has an unwritten code: "Don't threaten the other congressmen's loot." The Senate reprimanded Coburn by voting 82 to 15 to save the Bridge to Nowhere. The Ketchikan, Alaska, bridge is particularly egregious because it's a bridge to a nearly uninhabited island. Yet it will be monstrous -- higher than the Brooklyn Bridge and almost as long as the Golden Gate. Even some in Ketchikan laugh about it. One told us, "Short view is, I don't see a need for it. The long view ... I still don't see a need for it. Last week, Alaska's other senator, Lisa Murkowski, said it would be "offensive" not to spend your money on her bridge. When she first became a senator, I asked her if Republicans believed in smaller government. She was unusually candid: "We want smaller government. But, boy, I sure want more highways and more stuff, whatever the stuff is." I'll say. Alaska's pork projects spanned 67 pages. They get much more than other states. "Oh, you need to come up," she said. "You would realize it's not pork. It's all necessity ... People look at Alaska and say, 'Well, gee, they're getting all this money.' But we still have communities that are not tied in to sewer and water. There are certain basic things that you've got to have." But my children shouldn't have to pay for them. If people want to live in remote areas of Alaska, why can't they pay for their own sewers and water, through state or local taxes, or better yet, through private businesses? Why should all Americans pay to run sewer lines through the vast, frozen spaces of Alaska? Because Alaska has no money? Don't believe it. Alaska has so much money, it has no state income tax or sales tax. Instead, it gives its citizens money from something called the Alaska Permanent Fund. Stevens, Murkowski and Don Young, who once told critics of the Bridge to Nowhere that they could "kiss his ear," are not unique. Republican politicians talk about limited government, but the longer they are in power, the more they vote to spend. Spending your money, they want "more stuff." townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	10/27/2005 10:10:41 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Bush Backs Budget Cuts Power Line This could be a very important story. Then again, maybe not. To date, the White House has been mostly AWOL on the efforts to control federal spending that have emerged in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Yesterday, President Bush gave a speech to the Economic Club of Washington, in which he said he was "open" to across-the-board budget cuts, and also endorsed finding set-offs to balance hurricane relief spending. The full text of Bush's speech is linked below. A key paragraph: I met with the leader of the House and the Senate today, and we're working on a plan for pushing significant reductions in mandatory and discretionary spending. Both Houses are on progress -- making progress toward cuts that will show the American people we're capable of being wise about the money, and at the same time, meet our priorities. I encourage Congress to push the envelope when it comes to cutting spending. The liberals are always going to hate President Bush, basically for existing. If he wants to get anything done during the three years remaining in his term, he needs to shore up his standing with his party's conservative base. As we've said many times, that requires action--not just talk--on two key issues: illegal immigration and spending. In the last week, President Bush has made rhetorical gestures on both issues. That's a start, but it won't mean anything unless the talk is followed up with meaningful action. And, with the Democrats likely to make gains in next year's elections, the administration is running out of time. powerlineblog.com washtimes.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	1/26/2006 7:05:47 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Senator Train Wreck Coburn set to stir up the Senate by Tim Chapman Townhall.com Jan 26, 2006 When Oklahomans elected Dr. Tom Coburn to the United States Senate they knew that they were sending a man to Washington who would not dance the D.C. two-step. But Beltway types have underestimated the determination of this man not to go along to get along. Very soon, that will change. According to Senate aides, Dr. Coburn has notified his colleagues that he intends to challenge every earmark—or pork project—on the floor of the U.S. Senate. Coburn, who has been a champion in the fight against wasteful federal spending, believes that the congressional earmarking process is the genesis of the current Abramoff-related lobbying scandals. Coburn’s threat will dramatically slow the appropriations process because he will demand many more votes and more debate than normal on all spending bills. The added debate will allow senators to learn the merits (or lack thereof) of each earmark and affirm or reject. According to one GOP Senate aide, many of the old-bull appropriators are not taking the threat seriously and are confident in their ability to apply pressure tactics and parliamentary maneuvers in order to ensure business as usual on spending bills. But that aide points out Coburn’s commitment, “It will take a lot of votes on one or two appropriations bills before the appropriators figure out that [Coburn] means business.” Once they do figure out that Dr. Coburn isn’t bluffing, they will understand why some outside observers have affectionately dubbed the Oklahoman “Senator Train Wreck.” The clubby Senate could use a little shaking up. townhall.com townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	5/3/2006 10:03:38 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

A Step Back For Porkbusters By Captain Ed on Pork Barrel Captain's Quarters The effort to put an end to earmarks -- the technical term for pork-barrel projects in the federal budget -- hit a snag yesterday when the US Senate voted to keep such unrelated projects out of emergency spending legislation on hurricane relief and the Iraq war effort. In a related development, Robert Byrd vehemently opposed a modified versions of the line-item veto that he supported during the Clinton administration: <<< The Senate voted Tuesday to protect home-state projects added by some of its most senior members to an Iraq war and hurricane relief funding bill as the tide turned against efforts by spending hawks to strip them out. ... The price tag of the bill, therefore, has grown to more than $108 billion, despite Bush's promise to veto any measure that exceeds his request of $92.2 billion for the war and hurricane relief and another $2.3 billion to combat avian flu. ... Sen. Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia led the Democratic assault on Bush's line-item veto idea, saying it would shift too much of Congress' cherished constitutional power of the purse to the executive branch and give the president a new club with which to threaten lawmakers. ... "He could use this new leverage to squeeze members," Byrd said. "It is a weapon that the president could use to threaten and reward, and with the threat of that Damocles sword hanging over each member's head, he could expect to have his way on many issues." Despite his vehemence Tuesday, Byrd supported the core idea when it was offered as a Democratic alternative to the tougher line-item veto law more than a decade ago. >>> The projects that got past Senate pork hawks like Tom Coburn were a $200 million bailout of Northrup Grumman for indemnifyng the defense contractor against losses that its insurers refuse to cover. Coburn faced stiff opposition from Trent Lott, the man who apparently wants to make a career out of defying voters on earmarks, and Thad Cochran. Both Republicans insisted that the government needed to replace the loss, even though Northrup made a 7.1% operating margin in 2005, up from 6.7% in 2004 and 5.6% in 2003. That represent $2.4 billion in profit, an increase from $2.3B in 2004 and $1.9B in 2003. Why does a corporation that made $2.4 billion in profit need another $200 million from American taxpayers to cover a loss they've absorbed in that same year? Rather than focus resources on the truly needy and on real emergencies, Lott and Cochran have manipulated the relief bill to stick money into Northrup's pockets. Perhaps folks from Lott's home state of Mississippi should ask themselves why Lott seems more concerned about the travails of a corporation that had its best year ever than those who had their entire lives wiped out by Katrina. No wonder Lott proclaimed himself "damned tired" of constituents who question his pork-barrel activities -- who'd want to keep explaining this? The Pork Master also weighed in to protect his personal sinecures yesterday. Robert Byrd, who might be working on renaming his state Byrdsylvania to match the vast number of facilities named after him in West Virginia, warned against a line-item veto system that he supported under President Clinton. This system would not be a veto per se, but a requirement for any line item to which the executive objects to receive an individual up-or-down vote. It's weaker in that a simple majority can still pass the expenditure, but the potential exists for Congress to face thousands of such votes, given their proclivity for pork spending. Byrd will have none of that. He needs to put his name on a few more bridges and museums before West Viriginians retire him, an event that could come quickly given his recent antics. He warned that presidents could use this power to hijack the projects of his political opponents -- a concern that somehow escaped Byrd when he supported this during a Democratic administration. It's just another hypocrisy from a man who had made a lifetime pursuit of it. Until we get control of the spending process in Congress, politicians from both sides will exploit the power of taxation to ensure their re-election. Lott, Cochran, and Byrd all share the same addiction, and the American electorate continues to provide the fix through demands for increased federal power. Limiting government power is the only long-term solution to petty corruption and pork-barrel nonsense. ADDENDUM: Congress has a rather narrow view of profit in a free-market society. When ExxonMobil makes 10.7% profit, they decry the "windfall profit" of a corporation. When Northrup Grumman makes 7.1%, they qualify for a bailout. captainsquartersblog.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	5/8/2006 11:55:00 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Examiner: Time To Veto By Captain Ed on Pork Barrel Captain's Quarters The Washington Examiner exhorts George Bush to take an unprecedented step for this administration and veto any emergency spending plan that includes $20 billion in pork. The editorial argues that the White House must establish its authority in spending now or lose it for the rest of the term: <<< President Bush has frequently portrayed many of his most controversial actions as necessary to protect executive branch prerogatives against usurpations of power by Congress. So it is especially curious that Bush has yet to use the most potent weapon the Founders gave occupants of the Oval Office against Congress: the veto. If Bush is truly serious about protecting the powers and prerogatives of his office, he will set aside his veto reservations and slam-dunk the emergency funding bill if it comes to his desk in anything remotely resembling the form in which the Senate passed it last week. Bush originally asked for $92 billion to support U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and to assist with hurricane recovery efforts on the Gulf Coast. The House approved the bill substantially as Bush requested. Things were completely different in the Senate, where the Old Bulls had a field day larding the measure up with nearly $20 billion worth of special-interest earmarks like $700 million for the “Railroad to Nowhere” in Mississippi. A valiant effort by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to remove a dozen of the worst earmarks failed and the thoroughly stuffed final measure was approved by a wide margin. Passage came within days of release of a highly credible survey that said stopping such spending sprees was the public’s top priority. >>> The actions of the Senate made clear their contempt for White House intervention. Trent Lott, who has made a dubious name for himself with his arrogant reaction to voter oversight on spending, scoffed at the notion of a presidential veto. The leadership of both caucuses demonstrated the same attitude by stocking their side of the joint conference committee with some of the most notorious porkers in the upper chamber. This does not bode well for the final product. In fact, it presents Bush with a dilemma. Likely the House members of the conference will succeed in stripping some of the more egregious pork from the final bill, but how much? And how much is enough for Bush to accept? It is highly unlikely that the conference will produce the $92 billion that Bush requested. Can Bush veto anything above that number? The nightmare scenario for Bush will be a bill that comes in at $100 billion or so, splitting the difference. If Congress passes something in that neighborhood, it will be difficult for Bush to veto it -- and just as difficult for him to sign it. Given his track record, it looks like Bush might try to find an excuse to sign off on the final bill. However, in this case, I think he's more likely to issue a veto in order to fire up the conservative base and get them enthusiastic in time for the November elections. captainsquartersblog.com examiner.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	6/20/2006 6:44:05 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

A Line Goes Through It One simple solution for POTUS — and the rest of us. By Senator Bill Frist National Review Online In order to cut government waste, Congress should give the president a line-item veto. If approved, this type of authority would let the president send special-interest tax and spending provisions back to Congress without having to veto an entire bill. The president must have this authority for one simple reason: Under our current budget process, members of Congress can often slip pet programs or projects into massive appropriations bills that fund necessary, ongoing government operations. Few members of Congress, after all, would oppose the Department of the Interior’s nearly $10 billion budget because they don’t want to spend $350,000 for flower baskets in Chicago or stand against the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s almost $35 billion budget to deny a $550,000 grant to a glass museum in Tacoma, Washington. Under current law, however, most members have no real choice. Partly as a result, Congress has a hard time eliminating unnecessary spending. The Office of Management and Budget, indeed, reports that over a quarter of all federal programs either do not work or can’t show any evidence that they do. Another 28 percent receive “adequate” ratings (indicating problems) while a mere 15 percent set and achieve the ambitious goals needed to earn OMB’s highest rating. A bill that I’ve introduced along with Senators John McCain (R., Ariz.), John Kerry (D., Mass.), and 25 others, would begin to remedy this situation. Under the proposal, the president could periodically send Congress lists of projects, activities, and narrow tax benefits he feels don’t serve the national interest. After the president submits it, both houses of Congress would have to vote the package as a whole. The line-item veto has proven its worth in the states. In all, 43 state governors have some version of it. State legislators from both parties agree that it’s a useful tool. In 1996, furthermore, Congress gave President Clinton a line-item veto that he used 11 times to strike a total of 82 items. In all, those vetoes reversed a total of $869 million in spending hikes and narrow tax breaks. In 1998, however, the Supreme Court struck down that version of the line-item veto as unconstitutional on the basis that it gave the president too much authority that belonged to Congress. To accommodate this concern, the new version of the line-item veto requires Congress to approve the vetoed list. With this modification, I believe that the bill will pass constitutional muster. While this legislation will give the president a valuable tool, the line-item veto will not solve our long-term fiscal challenges by itself. Over half of all federal spending, in fact, takes place under entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. While the president could use the veto to stop expansions of these programs, he or she couldn’t affect the growth of existing benefits. Instead, it will require congressional action to reduce the rate of growth in entitlement programs. Without it, these programs will come to consume resources we could otherwise devote to defense, homeland security, education, scientific research, and dozens of other vital national priorities. Getting spending under control, in other words, will take many changes in the way our nation does business. Restoring the president’s line-item veto authority, however, would be a good start. — Bill Frist is the U.S. Senate Majority Leader. article.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	6/20/2006 9:40:01 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Bilbray claims to be a fiscal conservative, but so far he’s off to a bad start. Bad Start Bilbray John J. Miller The Corner The newest member of Congress has already gone native. Check out this update from the Club for Growth: <<<Brian Bilbray Goes Back on His Word Elected last week in the special election to replace felon Duke Cunningham in California’s 50th District, Brian Bilbray has cast several votes that seem to contradict what he said while trying to get elected. From the San Diego Union Tribune: “Bilbray said problems arise when earmarking is done in secret, so he proposed a ban on earmarks done behind closed doors.” And here are some comments he made at a debate: “I think the first priority is transparency and we passed a lot of laws when I first went to congress in 1995. There is still more to do, not allowing members of congress to put in private so-called earmarks for funding.” Despite these strong words to clean up the earmark process, Bilbray promptly voted YES on the T-THUD appropriations bill yesterday, which contained over 1500 earmarks ($), most of which weren’t even in the final bill, but secretly hidden in committee reports. Plus, he voted NO and NO and NO and NO on each of Jeff Flake’s anti-pork amendments. Bilbray claims to be a fiscal conservative, but so far he’s off to a bad start. >>> corner.nationalreview.com clubforgrowth.org

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	6/21/2006 6:22:01 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Kudos to the Senate (Did I Just Write That?) Kathryn Jean Lopez The Corner <<< WASHINGTON – Today, the Senate Budget Committee approved S. 3521, the “Stop Over Spending Act of 2006,” which includes a Legislative Line Item Veto. OMB Director Portman praised the Committee’s efforts to restrain spending. "Economic growth and spending restraint will keep us on track to cutting the deficit in half. Congressional support for the President’s pro-growth policies has helped generate job creation and strong revenue growth. “The spending restraint tools approved by the Committee today, under Senator Gregg’s leadership, reflects the commitment required to make continued progress in controlling spending. Part of the SOS package, the Legislative Line Item Veto, is expected to be voted on this week in the House of Representatives. The Administration strongly supports this critical tool and looks forward to working with Congress to see this, and other tools, enacted this year." >>> corner.nationalreview.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	6/23/2006 2:52:18 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Line-Item Veto Passes House By Captain Ed on Pork Barrel Captain's Quarters The House just passed the new limited line-item veto moments ago, 247-172, with 35 Democrats voting to support the Republican initiative on reform. Andrew Taylor at the AP notes the irony in this vote: <<< Lawmakers voted to give Bush and his successor a new, weaker version of the line-item veto law struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998, despite a recent series of lopsided votes in which they've rallied to preserve each other's back-home projects. It would expire after six years. The idea advances amid increasing public concern about lawmakers' penchant for stuffing parochial projects into spending bills that the president must accept or reject in their entirety. ... The bill would allow the president to single out items contained in appropriations bills he signs into law, and it would require Congress to vote on those items again. It also could be used against increases in benefit programs and tax breaks aimed at a single beneficiary. Under the proposal, it would take a simple majority in both the House and the Senate to approve the items over the president's objections. The hope is that wasteful spending or special interest tax breaks would be vulnerable since Congress might vote to reject such items once they are no longer protected by their inclusion in bigger bills that the president has little choice but to sign. >>> The roll call vote can be found (at the link below). Voters concerned about earmarks and corruption should note those who opposed this measure. The following Republicans decided to back away from the line-item veto: Aderholt Buyer (there's a name for you!) Emerson Hobson Jones (NC) Lewis (CA) Northrup Otter Paul Rogers (AL) Rogers (KY) Simmons Simpson Sweeney Walsh The inclusion of Jerry Lewis, the head of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, comes as no surprise. After all, Lewis sent $11 million in earmarks to Trident Systems, whose president paid Lewis' stepdaughter almost a third of all the money raised by his PAC, for which she was employed. Lewis doesn't want to lose his political heft and ability to direct federal funds to the beneficiaries of his family -- which gives us more reason to cheer this vote. It goes next to the Senate, where significant opposition exists. The idea of giving the executive branch the power to deny specific funding rankles those who already view this administration as a problem in terms of power-sharing. However, the Senate itself has shown almost no discipline in reforming its own appropriations processes, porking up one bill after another shamelessly. It took a conference committee to strip out $15.5 billion of pork added to an emergency spending measure intended to fund our deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as provide more assistance to Hurricane Katrina victims. Supporters need to keep the pressure on their Senators to vote for the new line-item veto. We need to make clear that those who hold out for a broken and corrupt system of appropriations will not long be trusted to handle the taxpayers' money. captainsquartersblog.com news.yahoo.com clerk.house.gov captainsquartersblog.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	6/27/2006 4:27:27 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Bush Urges Senate To Pass Line-Item Veto Posted by Matt Blogs for Bush President Bush, in call for the Senate to pass the line-item veto, also criticized House Democrats who didn't support the House bill even thought they claim to be interested in restraining federal spending... <<< A line-item veto would allow the president to cut certain provisions in spending bills without vetoing the entire measure. The House passed such legislation last week 247-172. Thirty-five Democrats joined with most Republicans in voting for the bill. "I was disappointed, frankly, though that more Democrats didn't vote for the bill, especially those that are calling for fiscal discipline in Washington, D.C.," Bush said in a speech to members of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank based in New York. "I mean, you can't call for fiscal discipline on the one hand and then not pass a tool to enhance fiscal discipline on the other hand. You can't have it both ways, it seems like to me." >>> With so few Democrats in the House voting for the line-item veto, the Democrats have made this a partisan issue. Nevertheless, Bush and the Republicans are the ones on the right side of this issue, and if the vote in the Senate is similarly partisan, Democrats will have totally lost any standing to criticize Bush and the Republicans over spending. blogsforbush.com apnews.myway.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	7/19/2006 5:58:01 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

BACON BENDER TIME TO END UGLY HABIT By PAT TOOMEY NEW YORK POST Opinion July 19, 2006 IT'S time for an intervention. Like a drug addict who focuses all his energy on scoring his next fix with no regard for the long-term consequences, the GOP majority in Congress is on a spending bender that may ultimately lead it to hit rock bottom as the minority party. The only way to stop it is for family and friends - in this case economic conservatives - to stop looking the other way in the interest of harmony and take action. According to Heritage Foundation analysts Brian Riedl and Alison Acosta Fraser, the Republican Congress is on track to have increased federal spending by 45 percent just since 2001. The party that won its majority status by campaigning for limited government has now passed the "most expensive education, agriculture, highway and Medicare bills in American history," according to Heritage. Republicans in Congress are also setting records for earmarking, the practice of funding local pet projects in members' districts which typically have no national interest and occasionally corrupting results. Frustrated Republican voters around the country have reached the end of their patience with the big-government Republican incumbents behind this behavior. In the congressional primaries where they've had a chance to express their concerns, those voters have handed victories to true conservative candidates committed to the principle of limited government. The Club for Growth PAC supports pro-growth, limited government candidates who oppose wasteful earmarks and support cutting taxes. Our record so far this election cycle tells the story. In seven primary elections this year (six for open seats), we endorsed candidates with strong records of fiscal responsibility - and wound up with six winners. But filling open House seats with true conservatives is not enough to break the cycle of addiction. Incumbent Republicans need to understand that their desire for more and more federal spending has consequences. The way to do that is to challenge, and defeat, the worst offenders. Here are two good examples. * Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island is a poster child for Republican spending excess. He has sponsored bills that would add nearly a half-trillion dollars in new spending over 10 years. The National Taxpayers Union has given him an abysmal 49 percent rating, out of a possible 100 percent, for his profligacy with taxpayer money. Demonstrating that his desire to spend surpasses his commitment to principle, Chafee has essentially said that his efforts to earmark money for pet projects would end when all 99 other senators agreed to do the same. * Rep. Joe Schwarz of Michigan established himself as a big, wasteful spender despite being one of the more junior members of the GOP caucus. In 2005 alone he voted for 11 bills that together contained almost 10,000 earmarks which cost taxpayers $29 billion. Of 231 House Republicans, the National Taxpayers Union ranked Schwarz among the eight worst for spending. If Republicans in Washington are going to get the courage to break their bad spending habits, the worst offenders like Chafee and Schwarz need to be shown the door. Both men are being challenged this year in their Republican primaries by principled conservatives, devoted to limited government. The Rhode Island primary is Sept. 12; Michigan, Aug. 8. The Club for Growth PAC and others are supporting those challengers to help the GOP kick its spending addiction and return to its position as the party of fiscal responsibility and limited government. Unless the GOP majority can quit its out-of-control spending, conservative voters will give vent to their frustration this November. They may not vote for Democrats, who would spend just as much or more. But they may very well refuse to vote for tax-and-spend Republicans by staying home. In a midterm election, where turnout among base voters is critical, that could be the equivalent of bottoming out for Republican incumbents. It's never easy to look a friend or family member in the eye and say they have a problem, but sometimes it's necessary. Republicans in Washington have a spending problem. If they are to get better, they need to understand the message that trying to get a political high by abusing taxpayers' money has consequences. Primary defeats for Sen. Chafee and Rep. Schwarz by true fiscal conservatives would send that message loud and clear. Pat Toomey is president of the Club for Growth. nypost.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	7/25/2006 11:59:52 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Biggest Pork Item In History? By Captain Ed on Pork Barrel Captain's Quarters Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) got Congress to pass his amendment to the Deep Water Energy Resources Act that had nothing to do with deep water or energy resources. Instead, HR 3496 earmarked $1.5 billion for the Washington DC Metro system, which operates above water in all senses except financially. The Heritage Foundation's Ronald Utt describes the amendment as "the biggest pork earmark in history", and it's headed for the Senate. I discuss this in my latest post at the Heritage Foundation. Most amazing, the earmark comes because the constituent cities and states involved have little interest in funding improvements to their own system -- so Davis decided to charge every man, woman, and child in America $5 to have someone else ride the bus or train in our nation's capital. Why, exactly, is this a federal problem? Davis has an explanation that will make you roll your eyes, and the Washington Post editorial supporting it should make you laugh out loud. Be sure to read it, and perhaps point out the folly of this earmark to your Senators. captainsquartersblog.com policy.heritageblogs.org

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	8/1/2006 7:15:20 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Contractors Balking At Open Government By Captain Ed on Pork Barrel Captain's Quarters Today's Washington Post has an article on the progress of the federal-spending database, but thanks to the Post's editors, it's buried on page D-4 of the Metro section rather than in national news. It contains an assertion that federal contractors will balk at having their oh-so-lucrative contracts listed for the public to review: <<< Politically, though, the bill could run into problems, as many large companies with federal contracts might not want certain information made easily accessible. "Vendors don't want their competitors to know what they're doing and what they're winning," Webber said. >>> Two thoughts spring to mind here: 1. Boo-frickin'-hoo. 2. Then let some other company win the business. I have more to say at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog, which also has a link to a minimum-wage study which shows how a raise will actually decrease the spending power of families who rely on it for their sole income. Don't forget to check out the Heritage quick-link aggregator, to which I will also contribute. I put a link to NZ Bear's work on pork in the HHS budget -- but you have to check the link to see it! captainsquartersblog.com washingtonpost.com policy.heritageblogs.org policy.heritageblogs.org linked.heritageblogs.org

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	8/2/2006 3:20:07 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Airlines To Get Free Ride On Pension Reform? By Captain Ed on Pork Barrel Captain's Quarters Congress is about to send a pension-reform bill to the White House that forces employers to meet their funding obligations for employee pension plans. Unfortunately, HR 2830 exempts at least one key industry from meeting that requirement, and tosses some serious pork into the stew to boot. I explain this at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog: <<< Airlines employ hundreds of thousands of Americans and the risk to those pensions will require immediate action. This free pass allows the industry to continue its under-the-radar flight on pensions, which hides the instability of the industry’s economic position. Postponing action does not mean that the PBGC would not have to bail out these pension funds; if history is any judge, exemptions and postponements result in less compliance, not more. Not only does the bill contain these exemptions, putting the retirement of many Americans at risk, the Senate has played their usual pork-barrel games in putting together this legislation. What do scenic prairie roads and the cleanup of abandoned mines have to do with pension reform? To the untrained eye, nothing at all – and yet two Senators have earmarked $50 million and $5 billion for these tasks in HR 2830, respectively. Rep. Mike Pence has voiced serious reservations about the Abandoned Mine Land Fund under any circumstances. Since 1977, AML has existed on fees charged for coal production, and these fees will expire in 2007. The fees go to cleanup of old mining sites, and also to supplement health-care premiums of miners whose companies have left the industry or gone under altogether. The new proposal starts lowering fees on coal production, increases payments to states and retirees, and forces the federal government to replace the funds – and changes AML from discretionary to mandatory spending. This adds the $5 billion to an already-bloated set of entitlement spending by the federal government, making it ever more difficult to reduce the federal budget. >>> Be sure to read David John's entire analysis of HR 2830, and why we should push for a presidential veto if it remains in its current state. captainsquartersblog.com policy.heritageblogs.org

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	8/6/2006 11:41:10 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Cooking The Books In DC Posted by Captain Ed Despite the coming disaster in entitlement spending, just the mention of entitlement reform brings yawns and not-so-surreptitious glances at watches. One of the reasons why the issue gets such low interest from the public is that the costs do not appear in financial reporting for the government. Thanks to the adherence to rules that the government forbids businesses to use, the budget deficit has been chronically and vastly underreported for decades. This practice goes back through administrations of both parties, and Congress under control of both as well. Remember how we balanced the budget and ran surpluses in the 1990s? Well, we didn't, and we didn't even come close. My new post at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog discusses the problem in some detail. The discrepancy arises from the government's decision not to report retirement benefit commitments in the year made, but in the year paid. The SEC strictly forbids this practive in private enterprise because it distorts a company's valuation; once the commitment is made, the company cannot simply rescind it. However, the federal government rationalizes its decision to violate this same principle on the basis that Congress can simply vote to stop paying Medicare and Social Security benefits whenever it desires. Not only does that distort the deficit picture, but the government doesn't provide audited balance sheets from a quarter of federal agencies, so there's no way to tell exactly how much money was spent. While Congress forces publicly held corporations to waste billions on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, 25% of the agencies -- including the largest, Defense -- produce records so poor that no auditor will approve them. If the government truthfully reported the deficits adding up each year, we would get an outcry for entitlement reform like no one has ever heard. Be sure to read the entire post. captainsquartersblog.com policy.heritageblogs.org

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	8/7/2006 1:03:22 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Welfare kings on tractors By Jonah Goldberg Townhall.com Saturday, August 5, 2006 For the fifth summer in six years, I'm driving across the country. Aside from the country's immense beauty, the decency of its people and the impossibility of finding a good cup of coffee near the interstate, one of the things you start to appreciate when you've seen a lot of America is how sparsely populated it is in the middle. It seems the welfare recipients need a lot of room. I'm referring, of course, to American farmers. Or, more precisely, American farm owners, a.k.a. Welfare Kings. There are few issues for which the political consensus is so distant from both common sense and expert opinion. Right-wing economists, left-wing environmentalists and almost anybody in between who doesn't receive a check from the Department of Agriculture or depend on a political donation from said recipients understand that Americans are spending billions to prop up the last of the horse-and-buggy industries. At this nation's founding, nearly nine out of 10 workers were employed in agriculture. By 1900 it was fewer than four in 10. Today, fewer than one in every 100 workers is in agriculture, and less than 1 percent of gross domestic product is attributable to agriculture. Yet America spends billions of dollars subsidizing a system that makes almost everyone in the world worse off. Our system is so complicated - i.e. rigged - that it's almost impossible to know how much agricultural subsidies cost U.S. taxpayers. But we know from the Washington Post's recent reporting that since 2000, the U.S. government paid out $1.3 billion to "farmers" who don't farm. They were simply compensated for owning land previously used for farming. A Houston surgeon received nearly $500,000 for, literally, nothing. Cash payments have cost $172 billion over the last decade, and $25 billion in 2005 alone, nearly 50 percent more than what was paid to families receiving welfare. But those sorts of numbers barely tell the story of our appallingly immoral agricultural corporatism. Subsidies combined with trade barriers (another term for subsidy) prop up the price of agricultural commodities for consumers at home while hurting farmers abroad. This is repugnant because agriculture is a keystone industry for developing nations and a luxury for developed ones. Hence we keep Third World nations impoverished, economically dependent and politically unstable. Our farm subsidies alone - forget trade barriers - cost developing countries $24 billion every year, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis. Letting poor nations prosper would be worth a lot more than the equivalent amount in foreign aid. But Big Agriculture likes foreign aid because it allows for the dumping of wheat and other crops on the world market, perpetuating the cycle of dependency. Then, of course, there's the environment. Subsidies savage the ecosystem. One example: There's a 6,000-square-mile dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, larger than Connecticut. It's so depleted of oxygen from algae blooms caused by fertilizer runoff that the shrimp and crabs at the Louisiana shore literally try to leap from the water to breathe, imperiling the profitable Gulf fishing industry. Most of the fertilizer comes from a few Midwestern counties that receive billions in subsidies (more than $30 billion from 1997 to 2002, according to the Environmental Working Group). The full environmental costs are incalculable. If global warming concerns you, consider that American farming is hugely energy intensive. Those energy costs are offset by Uncle Sam, so taxpayers are buying greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, across the U.S., swaths of forests and wetlands have been cleared or drained to make room for farmland that would never earn a buck if not for welfare support. Who knows how much cleaner the air and water would be with those resources intact? And who knows how many more dubious "wetlands" would be free for productive economic development? There's a lot of romance about the family farm in this country. But that's what it is: romance. Most of the Welfare Kings are rich men - buffalo farmer and CNN founder Ted Turner is one of the biggest. Of course, there are small farmers out there, but they have no more right to live off the government teat than the corner bakery I so loved as a child but that couldn't keep up with the times. We don't have a political system addicted to keeping bakers rich. Meanwhile, our system - chiefly the Senate, which gives rural states outsized power, and the Iowa presidential caucus, which forces politicians to whore themselves to agricultural welfare - is rigged to prevent real free-market reform. I'm all in favor of farming when it's economically feasible. And while many of these folks I meet on my adventures are the salt of the earth, I don't see why they shouldn't pull their own weight. townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	8/22/2006 8:03:26 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Porkbusters Hot Air TV (formerly "Vent" With Michelle Malkin) an original, daily video newscast hotair.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	9/1/2006 12:23:18 AM
From: Sully-	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 35834

Frist Confirms S.2590 Will Come To Floor By Captain Ed on Pork Barrel Captain's Quarters Earlier today, I contacted Bill Frist's office to ask for an unqualified statement that would clearly state his intent to bring the Coburn/Obama bill, creating an Internet-based searchable database for the federal budget, to the Senate floor for a vote regardless of holds. Fifteen minutes ago, Senator Frist posted this to his blog: <<< I’m very encouraged to see that all one hundred Senators have now answered the blogosphere’s inquiries on the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. Now is the time to act. In September, I will bring S. 2590 to the floor of the Senate for the vote it deserves. >>> Frist had to take care to keep from unduly antagonizing Robert Byrd and Ted Stevens, the two Senators that acknowledged their holds on the legislation. This statement makes clear that Frist will bring this bill to an up-or-down vote regardless of any attempted obstructionism, but he will still try to clear all of the objections in order to have unanimous consent for the vote -- which will avoid a complicated set of manuevers that would take days of effort to overcome. captainsquartersblog.com volpac.org

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	6/20/2007 2:47:05 AM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Waging War on Earmarks By Ken Blackwell Townhall.com Columnists Wednesday, June 20, 2007 Last year, incoming speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, vowed Democrats would “bring transparency and openness to the budget process and to the use of earmarks.” It seems Congressional Democrats’ professed appreciation for fiscal responsibility has had the life expectancy of a firefly. Now, Democrats and Republicans are openly battling each other over pork-barrel spending, better known as earmarks. An earmark is where a member of Congress secures federal money for their home district, “bringing home the bacon.” In the House, these provisions are not debated on the floor. Instead, they are anonymously inserted in committee reports before final passage. The spending is then voted into law without public scrutiny. The current earmark system is a disgrace and an invitation to corruption. And both parties have an embarrassing history with earmarks. Ronald Reagan vetoed a highway-spending bill because it had over 100 earmarks in it. Two years ago, the highway bill included over 6,000. The American people have had it with earmarks. Polls show that one of the reasons driving Congress’s near record-low poll numbers is their out of control spending. Both NBC News/Wall Street Journal and Quinnipiac University polls show congressional approval at 23%, seven points lower than that of the president’s. For some committed conservatives especially, this disapproval has intensified to outrage. This outrage is one of the reasons Republicans lost power. Polls show that a major reason, along with the Iraq war and corruption, for GOP losses in 2006 was wasteful spending. And frankly, some Republicans deserved to lose power. Political parties are elected to solve problems. You get elected to do a job. When you fail to live up to your principles and your promises, the people will turn elsewhere. This has nothing to do with legitimate government spending that happens to take place in one particular district. Federal funding is needed for some things, and that’s why Congress has constitutional spending power. But that’s also why all earmarks should be publicly disclosed and debated in Congress, so that necessary spending goes forward but wasteful spending is stopped. Instead, Congress has abused its spending power egregiously. When someone proposes $223 million dollars to build a bridge in Alaska to connect an island with less than 50 people to the mainland, the infamous bridge to nowhere, voters can be expected to get angry. The GOP has learned this painful lesson, shown by House Republicans electing John Boehner of West Chester, OH. as their leader. v Mr. Boehner has never asked for an earmark, and bluntly told his constituents that if they want someone to bring home the bacon at the national taxpayers’ expense, they should vote for someone else. His team is working with conservative stalwarts like Mike Pence of Indiana and the Republican Study Committee to end the process of earmarking as we know it. Feeling the heat last year, Republicans finally passed a reform requiring all earmarks to be identified by their sponsor and open to debate and to a vote on the House floor. While this is a step in the right direction, it proved too little and too late. Democrats used the GOP’s spending binges as a campaign issue to promise reform and take power in Congress. Now that Democrats control both chambers, they’ve suddenly lost all interest in stopping pork-barrel spending. In fact, the new process Democrats recently announced will actually be more secretive and unaccountable than ever. At a recent press conference, Mrs. Pelosi and the chairman of the committee on appropriations, David Obey, declared that they don’t have time to debate earmarks or even insert them into committee reports. Instead, members must vote for spending bills first, then later this summer they will be given the earmark list and can send written challenges on anything they don’t like to Mr. Obey. He alone will then decide which ones to eliminate from the House-Senate conference bill before the conference bill vote. Those bills are voted up-or-down. They cannot be amended. In response, Mr. Boehner announced he will mobilize the House GOP for an all out fight on this issue. He promised to use all his tools to stop this new system. The presidential candidates on one side of the aisle are also addressing this seriously. John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and Fred Thompson are all calling for ending secret earmarks. And, of course, a president has the ultimate solution to the earmark problem: He can veto a spending bill, and tell Congress he’ll only sign it when the wasteful spending is gone. Congress would get the message after a few vetoes. I’m happy to finally see candidates promise to do exactly that. Wasteful government spending has been a campaign cliché for too long. It’s now time for action, not rhetoric. And it’s time for those promising reform to deliver. If the Democrats don’t reverse their course, their congressional reign will be short and their nominee will fail. And if the GOP proves it’s serious about fixing our nation’s spending problems, they will be back on track to regaining the voters’ trust. Ken Blackwell is a Contributing Editor for Townhall.com and a Senior Fellow at both the Family Research Council and the Buckeye Institute. townhall.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	7/10/2007 9:35:36 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Once again Dem's make Republican hypocrisy look like they're pure as the driven snow by comparison. ** The pork index Power Line The Examiner has developed an index with which to measure the porkishness of U.S. Senators. It's based on how they voted on twelve key earmark-related issues in recent years. The results are discouraging. The average score was only 30.6 out of a possible 100. Democrats came in at a paltry 14.3, but Republicans can't take much pride in the 43.9 scored by their party's Senators. The Senate's leaders all came in below the Senate average. Majority Leader Harry Reid scored 16.6, and Deputy Majority Leader Richard Durbin 24.9. Both Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Deputy Minority Leader Trent Lott also scored 24.9. The five best scores went to Republicans -- Senators Coburn, Sununu, Burr, Ensign, and Kyl. They were followed by Democrat Russ Feingold and Republican Jeff Sessions. There were no surprises when it came to the biggest porker. Robert Byrd scored 0.** The Examiner plans to produce an index for House members soon, which should keep intern Emily Mirengoff busy powerlineblog.com examiner.com

To: Sully- who wrote (14449)	8/17/2007 6:00:45 PM
From: Sully-	Respond to of 35834

Hat tip to Tim Fowler: Defense Earmarks--An Anecdote: A while back, I met someone at a party, an engineer, who told me he worked for a defense contractor that thrives on earmarks. As he described it, so far none of the products he'd worked on was actually being used, and many of them didn't even work. He told me that two things happen after an earmarked project gets underway: either no one pays attention, in which case the company never bothers to finish a working prototype, but gets paid anyway once the paperwork gets filled out, or someone actually monitors the project, in which case a (barely) working, but useless, prototype is built that sits on a shelf somewhere because the Pentagon didn't want it to begin with. Not suprisingly, this engineer wasn't enjoying his job and was actively seeking employment elsewhere. The big caveat is that this was just "cocktail party" conversation, I can't vouch for the accuracy of the anecdote, and I don't even remember the guy's name, or exactly where I met him. But as criticism earmarks continues to resonate, I can't help thinking about the possibility that we're spending who-knows-how-much money a year on defense earmarks for completely useless products, and that whole companies are thriving on this basis. Gerg: Sure sounds consistent with this description of an "incubator for earmarks" from this article: <<< Republican Rep. John Campbell, an Orange County, Calif., auto dealer and five-year state legislator who is serving his first full year in Congress, is a rare ally of Flake. Campbell began the debate by challenging a $2 million no-bid award to the Sherwin-Williams paint company for a "paint shield" against "microbial threats." The Pentagon did not want this, but Murtha delivered his usual contemptuous retort on earmarks: "We don't apologize for them because we think the members know as much about what goes on their district . . . as [do] the bureaucrats in the Defense Department." >>> Flake then forced votes on Murtha pet projects — starting with "something called the Concurrent Technologies Corp." in Johnstown. In the brief time at his disposal, Flake tried to explain to an inattentive House how the company survives as an "incubator" for earmarks "just by getting more earmarks." He next challenged a $39 million earmark for the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown, which the Pentagon does not need or want. Murtha was coldly dismissive, denying the reality that these no-bid awards do not allow taxpayers to recapture any benefits that the corporations derive from federal expenditures. volokh.com Gideon Kanner (mail): This problem has nothing to do with defense as such; it's universal. Like Asimov's first law of robotics that trumps all else, the first law of Congresspersonhood requires a transfer of as many dollars as possible from the US Treasury to the Congressperson's home district or state. Nothing else comes close as a motivating factor. And as federal funding has become a pervasive fact of life, and bids fair to expand to subsidize anything and everything you can image (and some things you can't) the problem can only grow worse. Gravina Island bridge anyone? The Big Dig? The Los Angeles Intercontinental Airport? The Los Angeles Belmont Educational Center? The new NY Stock Exchange Building? Etc. etc. 8.13.2007 12:23pm volokh.com