Very noble! A wonderful application of the tea party furor to reign in spending and surely will be a long lived and principled *GONE*
quote:By ANDREW TAYLOR The Associated Press updated 11/23/2010 6:29:15 PM ET 2010-11-23T23:29:15
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans' ban on earmarks — money included in a bill by a lawmaker to benefit a home-state project or interest — was short-lived.
Only three days after GOP senators and senators-elect renounced earmarks, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, got himself a whopping $200 million to settle an Arizona Indian tribe's water rights claim against the government.
Kyl slipped the measure into a larger bill sought by President Barack Obama and passed by the Senate on Friday to settle claims by black farmers and American Indians against the federal government. Kyl's office insists the measure is not an earmark, and the House didn't deem it one when it considered a version earlier this year.
But it meets the know-it-when-you-see-it test, critics say. Under Senate rules, an earmark is a spending item inserted "primarily at the request of a senator" that goes "to an entity, or (is) targeted to a specific state."
Posted by BlackBlade (Member # 8376) on :
I wasn't aware they had a ban in the first place.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
Then, the backstory! It got talked up real good for a long time.
quote:Senate Republicans launched a full-scale assault on deficit spending Tuesday evening, approving an earmark ban and a flurry of other belt-tightening resolutions, while challenging Democrats to do the same.
Long-time earmark foe Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina offered the moratorium, along with Sen. Tom Coburn and 12 other senators. Sources say it is identical to an earmark ban expected to be approved in the House.
Immediately after the vote, DeMint told Newsmax he never has seen a conference so united behind foundational conservative principles.
The lamestream liberal media responds with ... skepticism!
quote:Earmarks are pet projects that lawmakers insert into spending bills to direct money to their home states – some for perfectly good causes, some not so much – but they have come to symbolize a culture in Washington full of special favors and runaway expenditures. Cue the GOP ban on earmarks, a move sure to score political points for the party. .
But will it really do any good?
For starters, it's a voluntary, non-binding moratorium, so any lawmaker could decide to break the pledge at any time.
In addition, scrapping earmarks will hardly balance the books on Capitol Hill. While the $16 billion that Congress spent on earmarks in fiscal year 2010 might sound like a lot of money, it is only a tiny fraction of the total federal budget. As Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine pointed out earlier this week, earmarks account for "less than one percent of overall federal expenditures."
Moreover, some of the same GOP senators who pledged to support the ban said that they couldn't promise to stick to it.
"I have consistently voted for the elimination of earmarks in the past and will support the earmark moratorium resolution today," Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-GA, said in a statement on Tuesday. "However, there are times when crises arise, or issues come forth of such importance to Georgia, such as critical support to the port of Savannah, and the nation that I reserve the right to ask Congress and the president to approve funding."
Posted by Darth_Mauve (Member # 4709) on :
Samp, isn't the role of the media to be skeptical? If so, why call them "lamestream".
I would find it much more lame to take a politicians word that they will stop gathering pork for votes.
Posted by 0Megabyte (Member # 8624) on :
I think he was being sarcastic, Darth. (Wow, saying that was incredible.)
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
Hmmm... I was unaware the Republican led congress started immediately after the election. I guess those Tea Party guys really have a lot of power to have the ability to seat all of them before 2011.
I don't think it could even be considered an earmark, since the tribe was suing the US government and not Arizona. Either the author of the article is confused, or everything I've read on the case is incorrect.
edit: It is against the federal government, and I still don't see why there is an uproar over this. There was a pending case against the government in the neighborhood of $500 million. They settled for $200 million, as well as eliminated a half dozen other lawsuits in the process. I'd like to think that is money well spent. I wonder how the article would read if it were a state that was primarily Democratic.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: Hmmm... I was unaware the Republican led congress started immediately after the election. I guess those Tea Party guys really have a lot of power to have the ability to seat all of them before 2011.
What does this have to do with this? The republicans didn't wait for the end of this session to engage in committing on their ban on earmarks. They didn't even wait for that to break it, either.
Posted by Geraine (Member # 9913) on :
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary:
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: Hmmm... I was unaware the Republican led congress started immediately after the election. I guess those Tea Party guys really have a lot of power to have the ability to seat all of them before 2011.
What does this have to do with this? The republicans didn't wait for the end of this session to engage in committing on their ban on earmarks. They didn't even wait for that to break it, either.
One Republican out of how many? You have this thing with generalizing that I just don't understand. There are many people in the Republican party. They aren't all souless automatons with a collective hive mind. They have minds of their own.
Should I remind you that Nancy Pelosi said that the Democrats were going to have the most uncorrupt Congress ever? She used words like "integrity," "honesty," and "transparency." Guess we should judge every Democrats now that Charlie Rangle is in trouble. I mean, if one of them misused funds, they all did, right?
It comes down to what you consider an earmark. Read up on the case. It is against the Federal Government, to the tune of over $500. Settling for $200 million and wiping 6 other lawsuits off the table at the same time is benefits the federal government, not Arizona. Just because the particular tribe lives in Arizona doesn't make it an earmark.
Goodness, by that philosophy the whole Health Care Bill could be considered a massive earmark.
Posted by Samprimary (Member # 8561) on :
quote:Originally posted by Geraine: One Republican out of how many? You have this thing with generalizing that I just don't understand. There are many people in the Republican party. They aren't all souless automatons with a collective hive mind. They have minds of their own.
Thankfully, my pointing out that the conservative earmark ban has already been broken does not make the republicans all out to be soulless automatons with a collective hive mind! Relieving. You can continue to misread me grotesquely to ensure you think I am making a lot of generalizations I'm not making, though.
quote:Settling for $200 million and wiping 6 other lawsuits off the table at the same time is benefits the federal government, not Arizona. Just because the particular tribe lives in Arizona doesn't make it an earmark.
Goodness, by that philosophy the whole Health Care Bill could be considered a massive earmark.
'that philosophy' is actually outlined under a definition in the OP; a reading of that does not render the health care bill 'an earmark.' Read it again, and you can see why.
Posted by FoolishTook (Member # 5358) on :
If this is a preview of a what a republican-led congress will be like, I doubt they'll retain their seats for long.
My sense is that people are getting tired of policies that are only meant for show.