Tea Party: Business as usual

[Mindflayer]

From Anti-Spending Tea Party Caucus Members Took Over $1 Billion In Earmarks:

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Congressional earmarks have been one of the primary targets of the tea party, representing the nexus of the movement’s arch foes — government spending and Washington influence peddling. If Republicans “go back to their old earmarking ways it could be a VERY short majority,” the president of the hard-right Citizens Against Government Waste warned. Looking to capitalize on the tea party, Republican leaders endorsed bans on earmarking as a way to show they were different from their spendthrift predecessors in previous Congresses. And last month, House Republicans unanimously extended an internal moratorium on earmarks.

But it appears that tea party’s self-proclaimed representatives in Washington haven’t been putting their money where their mouths are. Hotline On Call reports today that members of House Tea Party Caucus, founded by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to “represent the views of our constituents,” requested over $1 billion in earmarks during the last fiscal year:

According to a Hotline review of records compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste, the 52 members of the caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010, the last year for which records are available.

Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), for one, attached his name to 69 earmarks in the last fiscal year, for a total of $78,263,000. The 41 earmarks Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) requested were worth $65,395,000. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) wanted $63,400,000 for 39 special projects, and Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) wanted $93,980,000 set aside for 47 projects.

When asked to explain how they could join a caucus dedicated to fighting government spending and yet request millions in pork projects, tea party lawmakers told the Hotline that they stopped requesting new earmarks after joining the group.

But this is hardly the first indication that Republicans may not be as genuine in their commitment to fighting pork as they would like tea party activists to believe. Last month, as the AP reported that “[o]nly 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.” An earmark ban was also conspicuously absent from House Republicans’ Pledge to American governing agenda, causing uproar among activists.

Tea party favorite Sen.-elect Rand Paul (R-KY) highlights this disparity between rhetoric and action well. In March, his website told supporters that “a ban on wasteful earmark spending in Washington D.C. [is] one of the key points of his campaign.” But after winning the election, Paul told the Wall Street Journal that he “will fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork,” suggesting it would be “crazy” not to.

[Yarddawg]

These people are politicians. Why does it surprise you that they would lie to us?

[gunderwood]

I don't care for earmarks period, "wasteful" or otherwise, but it is part of the process. McCain ran against earmarks, most of the Tea Party did not. The Tea Party did run against wasteful and excessive spending. Naturally some of that is earmarks, but I can't recall any Tea Partier saying that all earmarks are bad.

As long as it is part of the system, it is one of the ways to return some of the federal taxes which were taken from the state. I think the whole process breeds more corruption than it is worth and would prefer the feds cut it out period. Replace that federal earmark spending with state taxes and spending, if the residents of each state really want those items. Otherwise, just reduce the federal tax burden and do away with earmarks period.

While I don't care for earmarks, the reality is that they are a trivial amount of the budget. I think arguing about earmarks is more about political grandstanding and pretending to solve the issue rather than actually addressing the large budget issues. Yes, nearly a $100M for each representative is serious money, but all the representatives combined (assuming approx. $100M each) is still less than US foreign aid ($50Bish vs $65Bish) and only 1.3% of the budget ($50B/$3.8T). Eliminating every last earmark would only reduce the defecate by approx. 3.8% ($50B/$1.3T).

Of course that ignores the "wastefulness" or validity of the earmarks spending by assuming all earmarks are bad or unconstitutional.

I've been critical of the Tea Party in the past (search function), but this is just grasping at straws. They didn't run against earmarks, they ran against wasteful and unconstitutional spending. An earmark is nothing but the process by which the funds get allocated...IMHO, it isn't the best process though.

Edit: Arguing about earmarks is like arguing about if toothpicks helped sink the Titanic...

[VBshooter]

We;re not gonna get it right completely the first time out,It;s going to take a cycle or two,,But we have to keep the pressure on hard to convince these officials that we aren't screwing around and won;t accept the business as usual crap..

[Taggure]

We;re not gonna get it right completely the first time out,It;s going to take a cycle or two,,But we have to keep the pressure on hard to convince these officials that we aren't screwing around and won;t accept the business as usual crap..

I am with Spence on this one we just need to keep on them and let them know that we are watching them very closely.

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

I am with Gunderwood on this one. I believe there is a difference between earmarked funds and pork barrel pet projects. I could be argued that it is preferable for funds to be ear marked directly to projects versus having those funds budgeted to the executive branch and have them inefficiently squander 50 cents on the dollar through waste.... but I won't make that argument.

I think we would be better served to question why the federal government has the funds to begin with.

[Kreutz]

"Personally, I like the President"-human-terrapin hybrid Mitch McConnell

yeah, you got hoodwinked on this one. Its ok, we do it all the time.

[ThereIsNoSpoon]

Huh?!?!?!