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In today’s edition of Roll Call, there is a rather telling article regarding earmarks in the Economic Stimulus Package.  The article, titled “Artfully Redefining Earmarks,” clearly points out that some members clearly don’t get it, including those close to Speaker Pelosi.  House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) is quoted in the article saying: “I know the politics of all this.  I just think they’re wrong about it…I love earmarks.”

It should be noted that President-Elect Obama has clearly stated that any stimulus must be earmark free.  Therefore senior Democratic Members of the House are crafting “Legislative formulas …to ensure that their districts share in the wealth…,” in clear defiance of the standard bearer of their party.

It is Clyburn’s intent to have these formulas act as trade-offs for members, particularly freshmen, who need political cover in order to support a stimulus package. 

As I have said time and time again, Members of Congress are not ATM machines.  Fiscal stimulus goes beyond ideological boundaries; and earmarks, or legislative formulas for that matter, have no place in legislation designed at tackling our nation’s economic woes.

Today the House will consider the Budget Resolution Conference Report for 2009.  The report calls for record tax increases, increases discretionary spending by $241 billion above the President’s level over 5 years, and does nothing to reform entitlements or earmarks. Below are some of the highlights of what this budget WILL do:

• Raises taxes by at least $683 billion over the next 5 years. These include increases in marginal tax rates; elimination of the 10-percent bracket for lower-income taxpayers; restore the marriage penalty, the death tax, as well as install higher tax rates on investments.
• Authorizes More Than $1 Trillion over and above entitlements. The conference report increases so called “discretionary spending” by $21 above the President’s request, pushing it above $1 trillion for 2009. This translates to a spending increase of $241 billion when extended over 5 years.
• Entitlements Continue on Automatic Pilot. This budget does nothing to address the growing entitlement problem. Medicare and Social Security alone currently face $40 billion in unfunded liabilities, and that figure is growing unchecked every year.
• Record Debt Increase. Although Democrats claim to balance the budget by 2012, the conference report results in the largest debt increase in history – from $8.951 trillion in 2007 to $9.575 trillion in 2008 – and increase of $624 billion this year.
• No Earmark Reform. Having repeatedly decried the scandal of earmarks, the Majority does nothing in the budget to address them. Last year’s appropriations bills included some 11,000 earmarks totaling $14.8 billion – and under this budget, the trend will continue.

Not only will this budget stifle economic growth, it will increase our debt level, and authorize an enormous amount of money for discretionary spending.  That isn’t even accounting for what the budget fails to do! ….Scary thought isn’t it?

DES MOINES, IA -- The last GOP debate until IA: The seemingly endless debate parade of 2007 began -- on the Republican side -- at the Reagan Library in California, underneath Reagan's own Air Force One. It took us to Columbia, SC (where the GOP candidates sparred for the first time), to Manchester, NH (where audio/lightning troubles allowed Rudy to joke, after receiving a question on abortion and Catholic faith, that perhaps God was trying to punish him), and then to here in Des Moines (where Brownback -- remember him? -- targeted Romney on abortion). It continued on to the economic debate in Dearborn, MI (where Thompson made his first appearance), to Orlando, FL, then to St. Petersburg, FL for the YouTube debate, and then the Spanish-language one on Univision last Sunday. Now it's come to this: the final Republican debate before the Iowa caucuses; the Democrats have theirs here tomorrow. And with all of the cable news networks carrying this debate live, what would have been an under-watched afternoon affair in Iowa is perhaps turning into the most important debate of the cycle.

AMERICA'S MOST WATCHED!
and according to leading Harvard Researchers - more now than ever:
AMERICA'S MOST FAIR AND BALANCED!

Oh man this is gonna hurt every liberal whack pundit on the planet:

The programming studied on Fox News offered a somewhat more positive picture of Republicans and more negative one of Democrats compared with other media outlets. Fox News stories about a Republican candidate were most likely to be neutral (47%), with the remainder more positive than negative (32% vs. 21% negative). The bulk of that positive coverage went to Giuliani (44% positive), while McCain still suffered from unflattering coverage (20% positive vs. 35% negative).

When it came to Democratic candidates, the picture was more negative. Again, neutral stories had a slight edge (39%), followed by 37% negative and 24% positive. And, in marked contrast from the rest of the media, coverage of Obama was twice as negative as positive: 32% negative vs. 16% positive and 52% neutral.

But any sense here that the news channel was uniformly positive about Republicans or negative about Democrats is not manifest in the data.

A rather not-so-bright reader to TownHall left this message on my post regarding - of all things a call to prayer for the victims of the California fires:

Let's see if FEMA can get this one right.

Oh, wait -- I forgot: popular Republican governor and the fires include Orange County. Not a problem!

But hold on a sec... Of course Republicans will get it right in California but not for the reasons the dim bulb above claimed.

Allow me to demonstrate:

It was the DEMOCRAT Mayor of New Orleans who left the 2000 school buses locked up - when the Louisiana Law REQUIRES him to utilize ALL public vehicles for evacuation - up to 48 hours in advance of the Hurricane hitting land. (If memory serves me correctly there were roughly 1500 deaths... Hmmm - 2000 school buses - 1500 deaths...)

AND

It was the DEMOCRAT Governor of Louisiana - that repeatedly told Washington DC (according to her OWN e-mails) to "back off" that they "had it under control" and that they "needed no help."

Of course eventually the feds HAD to override her authority because she was a dufus compared to the criminally corrupt moron that was the mayor...

OH and by the way... the video tape feed of Bush meeting with the Governor and the Mayor repeatedly - starting more than three days out from the hit will also document their incompetence. And the aftermath scandals of Mayor Nagin's goons selling the relief supplies with jacked-up black market style tactics out of their personal garages demonstrate their morally vapid souls.

It also demonstrated that the only failure the federal government really had in the matter was not kicking out the teeth of Mayor Nagin and Governor Bimbo and taking over the job from day 1.

"But you stupid voters - I'm the GOVERNOR!"

The new polling numbers are out across the Empire State and our Governor Spitzer seems to be LOSING ground as to whether he can convince them that creating fake IDs for illegal aliens in New York will really make the state safer. On the streets today in the New York Post:

October 16, 2007 -- The latest numbers are out on public support for Gov. Spitzer's executive order allowing illegal aliens to ob tain New York state drivers' licenses.

Read 'em and weep, Eliot.

In a Siena College poll released yesterday, 72 percent of New Yorkers oppose the gov's license plan - while only 22 percent support it.

Opposition to Spitzer's plan runs across the board: Even 52 percent of his fellow Democrats think he's wrong.

To underscore that fact, Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco yesterday released a list of 34 Democrats among 200 public officials opposed to the plan - including a former mayor of New York, a county executive, two members of Congress, seven members of the state Legislature and 17 county legislators.

In other words, it's hardly just the "rabid right" that opposes this lunacy, as Spitzer so intemperately claimed last week.

Indeed, a full 64 percent of those polled by Siena agree that the Spitzer proposal would create a national-security risk.

And by a 66-25 percent margin, New Yorkers aren't buying the governor's rationale for the plan: that it would lower insurance rates by reducing the number of unlicensed drivers.

Any way you look at it, those numbers add up to a political disaster for Eliot Spitzer.

The same poll shows his personal approval rating - which stood at an astounding 75 percent when he took office last January - has now dipped sharply, to 54 percent.

And what do New Yorkers think of Spitzer's actual job performance?

For the first time, a clear majority - 55 percent - rated it as poor or just fair. At the start of the year, less than one in five felt that way.