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Thursday, October 18, 2007
Amanda Carpenter :: Townhall.com Columnist
Earmark War on the Senate Floor
by Amanda Carpenter
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Fiscal conservatives won one battle but lost another over wasteful spending on the Senate floor Thursday.

Republican Sens. Tom Coburn (Okla.) and Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.) spearheaded efforts to eliminate two egregious earmarks tucked into the fiscal year 2008 Labor Health and Human Services spending bill.

Coburn zeroed in on a $1 million earmark that had been secured by New York Sens. Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer for a Woodstock concert museum. Veteran conservative reporter Bob Novak called it “flower power pork” in a Thursday column.

The Oklahoma Republican, who is an obstetrician, offered an amendment to strike it and reallocate the money to fund healthcare for pregnant women.

Schumer tried to stave off Coburn’s attack on the Senate floor. “I’m proud of the earmarks I’ve put in and I’m proud to defend them,” Schumer bragged. He argued the money would provide employment to poverty-stricken Americans in New York. “They are desperate to score jobs so their children can eat,” Schumer said.

Sen. Jon Kyl (R.-Ariz.) responded, “I just don’t think we should have earmarks in the HHS bill to create a jobs program.”

Ultimately, Schumer and Clinton weren’t able to keep the money for their pet project. Coburn’s amendment won 52-42. Five Democrats joined Republicans to kill the Clinton-Schumer project.

Another measure to cut pork, however, was defeated.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R.-S.C.) tried to persuade his fellow Senators to remove a project sponsored by New York Rep. Charles Rangel (D.) that would give $2 million in federal money to the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Policy, the Rangel Conference Center, and the Charles Rangel Library at the City College of New York.

Freshman Rep. John Campbell (R.-Calif.) has sarcastically called the earmark Rangel’s “Monument to Me.”

Promotional literature describes the project as “kind of like a presidential library, but without the president.”

Senators voted to support Rangel’s earmark 61-34. Thirteen of them were Republicans. Click here for a final vote tally.

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About The Author
Amanda Carpenter is the author of “The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy's Dossier on Hillary Clinton,” published in October 2006.
 
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It is difficult to remove pork....
from Politicians addicted to the power it provides. They think they are supposed to go to Washington to "bring home the bacon".


Difficult? Nope, impossible.
Notice that the one "successful" removal merely shifted the additional spending elsewhere.

Rangel would have gone down
If the funding had been shifted. That is what DeMint understood; that the good old boys club wouldn't vote it down unless they could show they voted FOR something else. Remember that Rangel sits on the House Ways and Means Committee which has to schedule all legislation. His power is such that he is working on a massive tax increase which makes that of Slick Willie look puny. They are afraid to cross him.

Umm, I'm just a little curious...

Schumer: “'I’m proud of the earmarks I’ve put in and I’m proud to defend them,' Schumer bragged. He argued the money would provide employment to poverty-stricken Americans in New York."

I'm wondering IF, or HOW MANY of these "poverty-stricken" Americans are actually illegal aliens that Spitzer is so eager to give drivers license to?

And wait, did I read that correctly, a "Woodstock concert museum?"

Naw.......... Please tell me that was either a misprint or a joke! Please!



Okay! Here it is!

Spitzer should be arrested and thrown in jail for breaking the law. (If I could figure out a way to have him deported with the rest of the illegal aliens in NYS, I'd be all in favor of that!)

Schumer and Clinton should just be put in "Stupid Jail."

"Woodstock concert museum?" One of the top ten stupidest things I've ever heard!





anne
I am waiting for shumer to finally get truthful and state that I am a traitor to america, I dispise president bush merely because he is a repub and I will tell any lie necessary to push the dims agenda.

charlie rangel
another mental midget who only bvelieves in stealing from the rich in order to reward the poor. There is no giveaway program that he won't he won't embrace. And now he is bragging about the huge tax plans he wants to enact. A total fraud but will never leave congress until he dies. But he brings home the bacon to harlem and now we taxpayers will pay for his monument to himself. Disgraceful

wildwest: You're what????


"... waiting for shumer to finally get truthful... "

Oh Wildwest, you are so funny! Chuckie "Schumer" and "truth" in the same sentence is an oxymoron.

That might just happen when you know what freezes over... Ooops, and here we are in the middle of "gloBULL warming." Ha Ha.

Chuckie wouldn't know the truth if it walked up and slammed him right in the head!


(How ya doin'?)








thanks for posting the senate vote
I wrote to my senators...


"I see you are voting for more pork"

starving children
in which universe? I thought America was having an obesity crisis and unemployment was at near record lows.

I also wish to thank you for posting
the vote. Happy to report both my senators voted aye. All the usual suspects plus some voted nay. It is the plus some that always mucks up a good thing. Some of the good "old" boys on the repub side just couldn't help letting the a#$hole build his monument to himself. Such a clubby lot they are. This is one more monument to the need for term limits. How many billions of more can we afford?

Third Party
I read where some comment "we need a third paty." I don't believe that because we already have one. It's called th Repulodems.

Bush's search for a positive legacy
If Pres Bush would just go to the people in a national address and announce that any Congressional spending measure sent to his desk for his signature which contained ANY "pork" at all would receive his VETO, he would have his positive legacy he is reported to be searching for!
The people would admire and back him 150% and Congress wouldn't dare defy him on this issue of the outlawing of "pork". (I also bet that they would find then the funds they want for SCHIP expansion)
The President is one of only two members of the Federal government elected by natonal vote, and it is he who should stand against Federal Congressional "pork" because he has no specific city, county, or state to bribe!

Anybody that hasn't seen the link yet...
http://www.conservative.org/
You can keep track of your congress and send them messages to let them know how you feel about their behavior.

You can also check my blog for a short list of current pork projects for this budget year, along with a link to the full list.

I was angry
as I read this article. The arrogance of these senators on both sides of the aisle come through especially Shumer. It is clear to these law makers that we are all sick and tired of the millions in pork in every bill especially those they are sure will go through and not be held up for earmarks. What can we do to stop this practice in the face of republicans and democrats banding together to contintue this practice??

Wait till 2008 when:
The Democrats will be out there saying how much the NATIONAL DEBT is! Well excuse me, but it's stupid things like this that have caused this!
WHY do people want to vote for the Democrats when they have already told us they will give all the illegals amnesty, AND raise our taxes to help pay for goodies for them and other POOR who won't get off their arses and get a job!!! I'm talking about welfare mothers who have NEVER worked, only on increasing the size of their families!!

Wish
I can see a list of the RINOS who voted for Charlie's monument.

Sorry,
did not see (read) the vote tally !

Jon Kyl
I'm really fortunate to have Jon Kyl as my Senator. He really is the Goldwater/Reagan type.

Graft Forever until non-germaine restric
Until there is a legal mandate for restriction of appropriations on germaine, pertinent and related projects to the titled bill, graft and corruption will be continuous. Need we remember Sen. ted Steven's Bridge to nowhere in Alaska? Unfortunately we have a pussilanimous President, when it comes to line item veto. I guarantee Madame Lucretia Clinton will have no scruppples or qualms on anything, especially giving a line item veto to any bill or project sponsored by a conservative. But the future Ms, Mao is not the issue.
Since we have abrogated the 1oth ammendment and any sovereignty or autonomy of states and states rights, we only have a collection of treasury plunderers who act more like pirates bringing in booty, than responsible legislators. They have given control of America to the UN, non-elected bureaucracies and the tyranny of the Judiciary.
All that is left is to expropriate more money and earmark this taxmoney for their own agrandizement and re-election. And who says there is no honor among theives. look at the collegiality of the Senators. It is a principal of collusion and collaboration.
Until we limit ammendments and expenditures to the pertinent, germain issue as listed in the title, and refuse to admit ammendments that are not even related to the issue at hand, both parties will continue this profligate squndering and betrayal of public trust. Mike Guy
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