Thursday, December 06, 2007

Earmarking: the Gift that Won't Stop Giving

A recent CBS story highlighted D.C.'s finest: the top spenders of our tax dollars on pork (pet projects and constituency-defined appropriations). Since our government wastes millions a year on everything from research on the mating habits of fruit flies to a Woodstock museum (nice try Hillary and Schumer!), due to new laws, these expenditures are becoming transparent.

No party has a monopoly on "pork," but the Democrats clearly have an advantage. 6 of the 10 top Senate earmarkers are Democrats, as well as 6 out of the top 10 House earmarkers. And what about those 12 courageous and principled U.S. senators out of 100 who did not request any earmarks? 10 of the 12 are Republicans--which leaves only 2 fiscally responsible Democrats out of 51 in the senate. Missouri's own Claire McCaskill is one of those two, and while the Konnection agrees with the senator on few issues, we give her kudos for following through on her campaign pledge. Most of her Democratic colleagues have not, just over a year after the Democrats pledged to restore fiscal responsibility. Apparently fiscal responsibility means spending more than the previous party in power. It's especially ironic that the Speaker of the House--Nancy Pelosi--ranks in the top 10 spenders, having requested a whopping $87,096,000 this year alone!

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