Republicans Make Up 6 Of The Top Ten Porkers In The Senate

• March 3, 2009

SENATOR – EARMARK $$
Byrd (D-WV) – $122,804,900
Shelby (R-AL) – $114,484,250
Bond (R-MO) – $85,691,491
Feinstein (D-CA) – $76,899,425
Cochran (R-MS) – $75,908,475
Murkowski (R-AK) – $74,000,750
Harkin (D-IA) – $66,860,000
Inhofe (R-OK) – $53,133,500
McConnell (R-KY) – $51,186,000
Inouye (D-HI) – $46,380,205

Aside from Republicans edging out Democrats for the top ten, check out Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell coming it at 9.
Now, I realize that earmarks aren’t the worst budgeting problem we have in this country. In terms of overall government spending (like, say, the $787 billion Obama dropped on the “economic stimulus” or the $145 billion AIG has gotten in bailouts to date) earmarks are pretty minuscule. That being said, for Republicans who are supposed to be proponents of limited government they represent a shady and corrupt aspect of our budget that they shouldn’t want to touch with a ten foot pole.
But they do. All the time. Because these guys seem to have stopped caring about the principles they were elected on and only seem to care about lining their own pockets and the pockets of their political allies.
Until Republicans knock this nonsense off, they’re going to remain in the political wilderness. Because it’s hard to get excited about a limited government movement led by people who don’t, in fact, really care all that much about limiting government.

Tags: Asshats, Domestic Issues, Politics

http://Array carrick

2Hotel9, most earmarks are in the budget. Earmarks are just a mechanism for ensuring how the money gets spent, and if the US is going to give a state $50 million to repair a bridge, they want to damn will ensure that money gets spent for what they allocated it for. Anytime you specify that, it’s an earmark.

The problem is with hidden earmarks, like that get put in during the House-Senate conference. That should be damned illegal, and it is certainly extraconstitutional in my opinion.
robert108

That said, the earmark process serves a useful role.

Exactly. If the funds earmarked for the Social Security trust fund were still in there, it wouldn’t be in the trouble it’s in today. It’s still programmed to fail, but it would be less of a ripoff. Thanks, LBJ!
http://ndgoon.blogspot.com/ goon

That list is a little deceiving. Kent Conrad doesn’t have any earmarks, but he was the last guy to get elected and he has to run as a “budget hawk.”

Kent Conrad the budget hawk that is one of the biggest jokes I have seen.
LoadTheMule

Now, I realize that earmarks aren’t the worst budgeting problem we have in this country.

You’re right, Rob, it’s not a big problem (in terms of dollars) but it is indicative of a the average politician’s privileged, almost regal mindset–and the republicans are just as guilty as the democrats.

Speaking only for myself, what many of the liberal posters here don’t understand is I am not a republican . . . I’m a conservative. Personally, I believe the following:

1. Both parties are taking us to hell in a rowboat. The only difference is the republicans generally row slower.

2. There are 535 members of the House/Senate. If you lined them all up facing the wall, had them drop their pants or skirts, then bend over and spread their cheeks–you couldn’t tell one asshole from another.

This post of yours is just one more illustration of what happens when getting elected–and staying elected–becomes a life’s work. The only real solution is to throw out every single incumbent every single time for 2 election cycles. That would get their attention. But we won’t throw them out because the majority of voters view politicians the same way they do lawyers” “They all suck, except mine.”
robert108

Roads and bridges don’t fix themselves?!?!?!

To the contrary; in the US, the costs of maintenance are already collected through taxes and bond issues; the extra cash bungler Obama wants to confiscate from us is in addition to what has already been paid. Now, if the politicians have spent that money on their wasteful social spending programs, rather than in building and maintaining infrastructure(like the levees in NO, that’s a corruption problem, not a money problem. In any case, bungler Obama is bullshitting about us needing more money spent on “infrastructure”. It’s really a payoff to his union thug buddies.
carrick

Deadrody:

Earmarks do not fix roads and bridges, they build museums to potatoes and bike trails and nonsense like that.

Better check your facts there, genius.
http://www.WILLisms.com/ Will Franklin

My Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison is #22 in dollar terms on that list. Yet another reason I am a Rick Perry supporter for the 2010 GOP gubernatorial primary.
deadrody

What should be really scary is that it is highly unlikely you can tie any kind of “earmark return” by state to election results. I don’t buy for a second that sending that money back to your home state for whatever pet project is getting enough votes to make a difference.

No, the real reason earmarks are out of control is that they eventually put money directly back into the pockets of the senator / representative that secured it. It’s just a form of corruption – politicians using tax payers money to get rich. And it is obscene.
2Hotel9

Earmarks are indicative of the twisted mindset that has us in the position we are all in now. The amounts were never the point, but that they felt it quite natural to lie and obfuscate about what they were doing.

Want to spend money? Put it in the budget, don’t steal it through deception.
2Hotel9

Carrick? You can merrily sell your soul to Satan. You can be just as happy about lying assed cocksuckers and hop right in bed with them all you want. That don’t make me their nigger. That makes you their nigger. Get Barack Hussein Obama to explain it to you. If the stupid fucker will.
carrick

That said, the earmark process serves a useful role.

It transfers spending authority on our tax dollars from the federal government to the local government. In an sense, it is the ultimate embracing of Republicanism, because it diminishes the power of the central government.

One might argue it would be better not spending the dollars, but roads and bridges don’t fix themselves.

No earmarks just shows you’re stupid, imo. Part of why I didn’t vote for McCain–I decided in the end he’s a complete idiot.
http://sayanythingblog.com/readers/author/realitybasedbob/ realitybasedbob

Of the 22 Senators with zero earmarks, gops account for only 5:

Stabenow (D)
Lincoln (D)
Pryor (D)
Menendez (D)
Kerry (D)
Smith, Gordon* (R)
Ensign (R)
Biden (D)
Dodd (D)
Carper (D)
Conrad (D)
Snowe (R)
Whitehouse (D)
Clinton* (D)
Rockefeller (D)
Coburn (R)
DeMint (R)
Feingold (D)
McCain (R)
McCaskill (D)
Obama* (D)

* No longer in Senate

(I don’t know why non serving senators are in that list either)
deadrody

Roads and bridges don’t fix themselves?!?!?!

Holy cripes, carrick, are you REALLY that stupid ? Earmarks do not fix roads and bridges, they build museums to potatoes and bike trails and nonsense like that. And 9 times out of 10 you will find that senator so-and-so’s brother’s, wife’s next door neighbor just happens to own the property where the museum is going to be built, and surprise, they bought for $1.

Come on.
http://sayanythingblog.com robport

That list is a little deceiving. Kent Conrad doesn’t have any earmarks, but he was the last guy to get elected and he has to run as a “budget hawk.” So his buddy Byron Dorgan did all the earmarks, and then the issued joint press releases where they both took credit for it.

As Dorgan gets closer to election I’m sure Conrad will take up the earmarking mantle so that Dorgan can be squeaky clean on election day.

Neat trick, that.

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Republicans Make Up 6 Of The Top Ten Porkers In The Senate

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