Watchdog group: "The Porkers are Back"

[springboksfan]

Let's try again.

 

[MidnightPrism]

It doesn't matter if Dems or Republicans are in control, 'Pork' isn't going anywhere.

 

[NickCole]

I'm not a fan of pork spending but complaining about "special interest goodies" when the items are stuff like $500 million for emergency wildfires suppression and $400 million for rural schools doesn't outrage me like Repulican bridges to nowhere.

 

[1st love ron]

That list is peanuts compared to what his being thrown away in Iraq. Nobody seems to question the billions spent for that debacle.

 

[opinterph]

Flashback
May, 2006​

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Congress needs to hear me loud and clear. If they spend more than 92.2 plus pandemic flu emergency funds, I will veto the bill.

KOPPEL: But by a vote of 78-20, the Republican-dominated Senate defied the president and voted to spend almost $109 billion, or over $14 billion more than what President Bush said he'd allow. Included in the Senate bill, much of what Mr. Bush wanted, almost $71 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as close to $30 billion for hurricane relief in the Gulf Coast and 11 billion for homeland security and border protection. But that's not what has critics up in arms.

SEN. JIM BUNNING (R), KENTUCKY: It has everything but the kitchen sink. And as I read through the programs that will provide $20 million for oyster fishermen in New England, and $4 million for erosion control projects in California and Michigan, I'm starting to believe the kitchen sink must be in there, too, somewhere.

KOPPEL: Critics say the bill is packed with expensive pet projects places like Hawaii, where $6 million is earmarked to help the islands' struggling sugar industry.

SEN. TOM COBURN (R), OKLAHOMA: Emergencies are supposed to be reserved for true emergencies. Unexpected costs facing the federal government. This bill is loaded with things that aren't unexpected.

KOPPEL: But Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran. who successfully pushed for $700 million to relocate his state's railroad line, said an emergency is in the eye of the beholder.

SEN. THAD COCHRAN (R), MISSISSIPPI: An emergency is, you know, whatever a majority of the Congress agrees is an emergency. [Link]

 

[jackoroe]

So the democrats told us things would be different if we elected them. Earmarks, they used to call them. They are as sickening as the Republican big spenders were.

 

[Andreus]

actually i posted an article today before mowrest posted this one

this is in answer to the fact that the pork is much less now than it has been in years

even with the current bill to fund the military

so get your story straight

it IS better now than it ever has been

and with the pay as you go clause the house enacted, we all know it HAS to be

your partisan positioning is charming though

you wouldnt be so bad if you'd just give up on all that bushistic crap

 

[springboksfan]

It really makes me think someone should force through a bill/law making it impossible to attach off-topic spending to any bill. It's insane the earmarks, as jack called them, that get attached to bills. Can you imagine the spending that would stop? "What? I have to write a new bill to get money for that bridge to nowhere?!? Then everyone will see!"

 

[Andreus]

It really makes me think someone should force through a bill/law making it impossible to attach off-topic spending to any bill. It's insane the earmarks, as jack called them, that get attached to bills. Can you imagine the spending that would stop? "What? I have to write a new bill to get money for that bridge to nowhere?!? Then everyone will see!"

that would make too much sense

its the kind of bill that the public would write

never the people in power

its ashame theres no federal mechanism to mandate a law by petition

 

[springboksfan]

Yeah I know. Hence the use of the word "force". Pity, isn't it?

But let's examine about that petition idea for a minute. Let's think of all the Pat Robertson laws we'd have on the books by now!

 

[Andreus]

true '

the deffence of marriage act would be a law and blacks and women would still be in the back of the bus

kind of sad really

well it was a good idea on the surface

 

[Centexfarmer]

President Bush requested $103 billion in emergency spending for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and disaster relief. The House Appropriations Committee included an additional $21 billion in the U.S. Readiness, Veterans’ Health and Iraq Accountability Act, 2007, that is being marked up today.

It wouldn't surprise me if part of the reason that the Democrats loaded the emergency spending bill for Iraq with "pork," is to force Bush to veto the bill, and forcing Bush to cut the funding for the war in Iraq.

The Republicans should have given Clinton the line-item veto back when he asked for it. That way Bush could use now.

 

[Andreus]

if only that were the case

the senators know that the congress has always had etremely low approval ratings, yet they are individually held higher in the esteem of their constituents when they bring home federal dollars to their states

so

they dont mind looking bad as a group so long as individually they keep their states coffers filled with cash from uncle sam

and thats what happened this time

they all held back on their votes until pork promises were attatched to the bill

it seems to me that at this time, neither the presidency nor the congress is extremely interested in who looks bad

the truth is that the war will be firmly hung on the shoulders of the president yet if it ends it will be the congress that gets the political prize

this being considred, i cant see what would motivate the president to move from his position

he loses either way

 

[opinterph]

The Republicans should have given Clinton the line-item veto back when he asked for it. That way Bush could use [it] now.

Clinton was actually the first president to exercise the Line-Item Veto. The Supreme Court determined it to be unconstitutional.

 

[Centexfarmer]

Clinton was actually the first president to exercise the Line-Item Veto. The Supreme Court determined it to be unconstitutional.

The irony of the Line-Item Veto, and SCOTUS having striked it down, is that it took place under Clinton during a huge "budget-surplus."

Now here's a thread in which the OP blasts the Democrats for "pork," when he should really be blasting the Republicans and their leadership for the HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS that they've spent since 2000, and having squandered that surplus.

HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS!

For what?

 

[texpatriot]

I like these editorial cartoons!

http://www.justusboys.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2479079&postcount=189

http://www.justusboys.com/forum/showpost.php?p=2487143&postcount=196

 

[NickCole]

Consider them blasted. But, the point is that it's still happening. It has happened in the past and it's disgusting, but the Democrats said they'd end it, and they haven't.

You're wrong.

Democrats did not say they'd end earmarks.

Here's what they said:

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said her first agenda item after being elected House speaker will be a vote to require sponsors of earmarks to be identified. Currently, lawmakers can remain anonymous in sponsoring an earmark, which is language in a bill that directs funds or tax benefits to a business, project or institution.

"There has to be transparency," the California congresswoman told USA TODAY last week. "I'd just as soon do away with all (earmarks), but that probably isn't realistic."

Pelosi said some earmarks "are worthy," and they can be a legitimate way for Congress to force fiscal priorities on the White House.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the number of earmarks in appropriations bills has tripled in the past decade to about 16,000. One famous example was an earmark that set aside millions for a "bridge to nowhere" — a span over a remote Alaskan waterway to a sparsely populated island.

"You can't have bridges to nowhere for America's children to pay for," Pelosi said. "Or if you do, you have to know whose it is."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-11-12-dems-pork-sponsors_x.htm