Red States Gobble Up Omnibus Earmarks

from HuffPost:




Ryan Grim ryan@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost
Reporting From DC

Red States Gobble Up Omnibus Earmarks
March 2, 2009 05:11 PM


it's budget time, it's good to be a red state. And it's very good to be Mississippi.

According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, Mississippi has won the earmark contest in the omnibus budget package.

Mississippi Republican Sen. Thad Cochran led his colleagues by raking in more than $470 million in 204 earmarks. Mississippi's junior Republican, Roger Wicker, pulled in more than $390 million. The totals can't be added together because the figure includes earmarks each received solo and with others, so the same earmark could be in both senators' column. Cochran, on his own, pulled in roughly $76 million and Wicker brought home $4 million.

Cochran's $76 million ranks him sixth among solo earmarkers. (Earmarks can be requested individually, with other members of Congress or along with the president.) ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/02/red-states-gobble-up-omni_n_171186.html

Granted I guess I don't understand this process completely, but these are the same whiners who have been bitching about wasteful spending and pork in the stimulus bill, so why the hell are they allowed to stick stuff into the budget?

The whole earmark sham is cynical GOOP ploy to astroturf yet another issue that they can use to bash Democrats but few people understand and fewer will bother to investigate.

When the Democrats took control earmarks became a big thing to the GOOP because they had lost the power of the purse. They knew that to the victor goes the spoils and they tried to poison the waters for Pelosi & Company by shaming them into not spending as frviolously as the GOOP did when they were in power. Since they couldn't decide who and what got the money, they sure didn't want the Democrats to have that ability.

Pork and Earmarks are what most people pay their congressman for...or expect from them. To expect Congress to vote on every single spending request is impossible, thus a lot of this stuff is worked on behind closed doors. While the entire House couldn't care about your local sanitation system or business community, your rep does and it's been the way they do the little things that make a difference back home.

The difference between the GOOPs and Democrats is who benefits from those earmarks. The GOOP wants that money to go to their corporate welfare kings and queens...not to the lower and middle classes.