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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: bluezuu who wrote (82828)	9/7/2008 5:40:29 PM
From: Rambi	Respond to of 541777

If they didn't have that enormous fund, and if they weren't making tons of money with their oil, I might see the logic in that. But I don't.

To: bluezuu who wrote (82828)	9/7/2008 5:49:57 PM
From: Stan J. Czernel	Respond to of 541777

Earmarks have been used for decades by many other senators from many other states and will continue to be used in the future in some other form I agree. They are politicians, after all, and they want to please their constituencies to get re-elected. Bringing home the bacon will always be a crowd pleas-er where it matters - in the state of the legislator who brought it home. But there are good earmarks and bad earmarks. No one asks: "is this the best use to which we can put this money?" I say, either give the President a line-item veto, or legislate that any earmarks have an addendum that says "...or for any other purpose that the state of ------ deems fitting." This , at least, would now make local politicians accountable to their constituencies that the money not be used foolishly. It may not deminish the hunger for pork, but I bet you would see far fewer "bridges to nowhere".

To: bluezuu who wrote (82828)	9/8/2008 8:42:20 PM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541777

>>I and other Alaskans have spent a lot of time trying to understand why the Palin administration would announce publicly that it was going to drastically cut the earmarks the state seeks from our congressional delegation. It makes no sense to us. By doing it so publicly, she may have jeopardized all other existing federal funding for Alaska. << Blue - The author of that piece, Carl Marrs, apparently doesn't understand that yes, there is something wrong with earmarks. The problem is that they are attached to unrelated bills, often with inadequate notice to congresspeople, and that they are not debated or voted on based on their own merits. If Alaska truly needs funding for infrastructure or whatever, let their Representatives and Senators put forth their proposals asking for it in their own bills. Let Congress debate the merits of these requests for funding. There's no reason funding requests can't be handled in an above board manner. I'm glad that Gov. Palin has, since being nominated for VP, decided to stop using earmarks to get what her state needs. It had really become a bad habit for her. - Allen