AZAMATTEROPRINCIPLE

Minutes For McCain-Palin

2008-10-18T13:02:00.000-04:00

Don't let those free cell phone minutes go unused!

Don't let those Rollover minutes expire!

Let's use our Minutes for McCain-Palin 2008!

Let’s Get This Right

in conjunction with

McCainGoogleGroups.com, McCainVictory08.com, McCainNow.com,

McCain State Facebook Groups,

PoliticoMafioso and MadIrishman

is urging EVERYONE to use their

MINUTES FOR McCAIN-PALIN 2008!!!

Working together, we can make 100,000 calls for McCain-Palin 2008 between now and November 4th. If you believe you pay enough taxes, if you believe Barack Obama shouldn’t spread YOUR wealth around, if you believe in the 2^nd Amendment, if you believe that Barack Obama should nominate the next two Supreme Court justices, if you believe that the best government is that which governs least YOU NEED TO MAKE THESE VITAL

GET OUT THE VOTE CALLS TO BATTLEGROUND STATES SUCH AS PENNSYLVANIA, FLORIDA, OHIO, NEW HAMPSHIRE, COLORADO, VIRGINIA, NEW MEXICO, NEVADA, MISSOURI AND NORTH CAROLINA.

You can make 20 calls in each session using the OnLine Phone Bank at www.JohnMcCain.com. It will take about 45 minutes depending on the number of people you actually reach.

If EVERY loyal McCain-Palin supporters who read this make just 20 calls a day between now and Election Day we can EASILY make our goal of 100,000 calls for McCain-Palin 2008 (if not more.) According to polls, 59% of Americans describe themselves as “conservative” or “somewhat conservative.” There was no Liberal groundswell in the 2006 election. Conservatives and Republicans just stayed home.

45 MINUTES A DAY WHICH WILL SHAPE THIS COUNTRY FOR THE NEXT EIGHT YEARS! 45 MINUTES A DAY FROM THE COMFORT OF YOUR OWN HOME. INVITE YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY OVER WITH THEIR LAPTOPS AND CELL PHONES AND WORK TOGETHER.

Election 2008 is NOT over!

2008-10-13T17:39:00.001-04:00

Cross-posted from Let's Get This Right.

If only half of the people who read this message take a couple of hours to make 100 phone calls and write 10 Letters to the Editor, we can contact 200,000 voters and write 20,000 letters between now and Election Day. We should actually be able to do better than that to make certain John McCain, Sarah Palin and America wins on November 4th.

A McCain-Palin victory on November 4th will require two things. First is a reversal of the current financial/banking crisis and an accompanying rebound in the stock market. Second is continued determination and hard work by grassroots volunteers in the face of seemingly impossible odds.

We can all hope for a turnaround in the market, but we can't cause it. We can all hope for a change in the McCain-Palin campaign message and strategy but we can't control it. What we can control, individually and collectively is how hard and effectively we work over the next three weeks to Get Out The Vote.

I encourage everyone who receives this message to visit the McCain-Palin 2008 Voter2Voter Online Phone Bank. The instructions are easy and the script is simple and straightforward. While you can choose to call your home state, I would suggest that we focus on the six of nine "toss-up" states that went for Bush in 2004 but that are currently leaning towards Obama-Biden. These are Florida, Ohio, North Carolina, Colorado, Nevada and Virginia. We absolutely MUST hold on to these states and their 89 Electoral College votes if we are to have any hope of keeping Barack Obama out of the White House.

The other thing we need to do is convince Obama leaning and undecided voters that an Obama-Biden administration with an overwhelmingly democratically controlled Congress would be a disaster for the American people. The main stream media is never going to give the McCain-Palin ticket a fair shake nor are they going to expose just how bad an Obama-Biden administration would be for our economy.

Our only hope is to go around the Main Stream Media and go straight to the people. You can e-mail friends or post on your blogs or comment on others. However, let's remember that in spite of the growth of the internet a huge number of people still get their news from their local paper. I would encourage everyone to write letters to the editor of their local papers. Actually, at www.publishaletter.com you can send a letter to almost any paper big or small in the country. If you need some ideas, please read below and click on the links to learn more.

According to an Op Ed piece by Bruce Ash, "Should Barack Obama be trusted with proposing tax policy, when he has voted nine times against lowering the capital gains tax rate, seven times against implementing tax incentives for small businesses, six times against lowering the estate tax and three times against repealing a more than decade-old increase in taxes on Social Security benefits."

Brad O'Leary in his book on Barack Obama, The Audacity of Deceit has a great chapter, "War on Success" that details ten different Obama proposals to raise taxes. You can download this or any other chapter FREE by clicking HERE.

In Monday's Wall Street Journal, the lead editorial was titled Obama's 95% Illusion which clearly shows that Obama's "tax cuts" are really marginal tax rate increases masked by "refundable tax credits" whether one actually pays taxes or not.

"There's another catch: Because Mr. Obama's tax credits are phased out as incomes rise, they impose a huge "marginal" tax rate increase on low-income workers. The marginal tax rate refers to the rate on the next dollar of income earned. As the nearby chart illustrates, the marginal rate for millions of low- and middle-income workers would spike as they earn more income.

Some families with an income of $40,000 could lose up to 40 cents in vanishing credits for every additional dollar earned from working overtime or taking a new job. As public policy, this is contradictory. The tax credits are sold in the name of "making work pay," but in practice they can be a disincentive to working harder, especially if you're a lower-income couple getting raises of $1,000 or $2,000 a year."

We have 21 days to win this thing. Please give at least a few hours to help secure America's future.

Obama Campaign Lies About Keating Economics

2008-10-06T14:08:00.000-04:00

So I got an e-mail Monday morning [excerpts below] from Obama Campaign puppet master David Plouffe announcing that they would be releasing a 13 minute “documentary”, “Keating Economics: John McCain and the Making of a Financial Crisis.” I was curious how many lies of commission and omission the Obama campaign could fit into a single short e-mail.

Now I didn’t expect Plouffe to mention that Barack Obama has received in three years, five times the political donations from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that John McCain has received in twenty years. I didn’t expect Plouffe to explain what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bought with those payments.

Over the weekend, John McCain's top adviser announced their plan to stop engaging in a debate over the economy and "turn the page" to more direct, personal attacks on Barack Obama.

Okay. According to RealClearPolitics it wasn’t McCain’s top adviser and what he said was "looking to turning the page on this financial crisis and getting back to discussing Mr. Obama's liberal, aggressively liberal, record and how he will be too risky for the Americans." I guess talking about Senator Obama’s record is a personal attack. I mean he did personally establish his record as a hard left liberal.

In the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great
Depression, they want to change the subject from the central question of this election. Perhaps because the policies McCain supported these past eight years and wants to continue are pretty hard to defend.

Well that is demonstrably false as we are not “in the middle of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.” While we are at risk of it, the worst economic crisis since the great depression is still the stagflation brought on by the Carter economic policies when home foreclosure rates were higher than they are today.

Actually John McCain supported greater oversight and regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac both in 2003 and 2006. John McCain had the foresight to predict the crisis that led to the Government bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Obama’s buddy, Senator Chris Dodd wouldn’t even let the bill out of committee.

But it's not just McCain's role in the current crisis that they're avoiding. The backward economic philosophy and culture of corruption that helped create the current crisis are looking more and more like the other major financial crisis of our time.

Actually over regulation and misguided regulation caused this crisis.

During the savings and loan crisis of the late '80s and early '90s, McCain's political favors and aggressive support for deregulation put him at the center of the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan, one of the largest in the country. More than 23,000 investors lost their savings.

Actually John McCain was never at the “center of the fall of Lincoln Savings and Loan”.
The Senate Ethics Committee probe of the Keating Five began in November 1990 and committee Special Counsel Robert Bennett [a Democrat] recommended that McCain and Glenn be dropped from the investigation. They were not. McCain believes Democrats on the committee blocked Bennett's recommendation because he was the lone Keating Five Republican.

I also find it interesting how Plouffe tries to spin the phrase “investors lost their savings” implying that people with savings accounts lost money (They didn’t as they were FSLIC insured.) and unless Mr. Plouffe knows all the investors personally, I am not sure he can also imply that they lost all of their savings.

Plouffe also doesn’t mention that the policies of Obama, helping to block stricter oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac has already cost the government billions of dollars and investors have lost over $60 billion of their savings in the last year alone with the collapse of FNMA common and preferred stock.

Overall, the savings and loan crisis required the federal government to
bail out the savings of hundreds of thousands of families and ultimately cost American taxpayers $124 billion.

Sound familiar?

In that crisis, John McCain and his political patron, Charles Keating,
played central roles that ultimately landed Keating in jail for fraud and McCain in front of the Senate Ethics Committee.

This from wikipedia on the Keating Five Scandal

After a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its investigation of Lincoln Savings, with Cranston receiving a formal reprimand. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised "poor judgment".

[Plouffe fails to mention that it was only Democratic Senators who were found to have acted improperly and in fact all three chose to not run for re-election.]

And this time, McCain's bankrupt economic philosophy has put our economy at the brink of collapse and put millions of Americans at risk of losing their homes.

Actually again, no. It was the policies of Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank and Barack Obama that have put millions of American’s at risk of losing their homes. Of course, most of those people couldn’t really afford those homes in the first place.

If Barack Obama through David Plouffe can tell that many lies about John McCain in a short e-mail, I wonder how many he can tell in a 13 minute documentary.

But of course neither Plouffe or Obama will tell you that.

The Joe Biden Health Watch

2008-09-12T11:24:00.003-04:00

Cross-posted from Let's Get This Right.

I had a discussion last night with my good friend Tony GOPrano of PoliticoMafioso during which I suggested that if the health of the Obama campaign doesn't improve dramatically by October 1st, you can be assured that Joe Biden's will decline just as dramatically over the same time frame. Tony disagreed with me strongly. Granted he lives in Arizona, has volunteered for John McCain campaigns for years and has one of the most highly read pro-McCain blogs out there.

However, when I woke up and saw the headline in the Financial Times Democrats on Capitol Hill Fear Obama Fallout I knew that the Biden Health Watch was on.

Let's remember that it was those same Democratic party bosses that selected Barack Obama over Senator Hillary Clinton not because they felt he was more qualified to be President but rather for the dollars and new voters he would bring to the party. Barack Obama was going to lead the charge for "change", 40 more seats in Congress and a filibuster proof Senate.

Well as the saying goes..."Not so much."

"Democratic jitters about the US presidential race have spread to Capitol Hill, where some members of Congress are worried that Barack Obama’s faltering campaign could hurt their chances of re-election. Party leaders have been hoping to strengthen Democratic control of the House and Senate in November, but John McCain’s jump in the polls has stoked fears of a Republican resurgence."

According to an article today on Real Clear Politics, Palin's popularity has trickled down to other races.

"John McCain successfully closed the gap with Barack Obama when he chose Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate. But beyond the presidential contest, Republican leaders in Congress see a shifted landscape for their candidates, and for the first time in months, they have reason to be cautiously optimistic about the November elections.

"In the last three or four weeks, Democrats thought, especially after their convention, they thought things were all moving in their direction," National Republican Senatorial Committee chair John Ensign told Real Clear Politics. "The momentum has totally changed, and it's on our side."

Real Clear Politics' own polling data shows the Democrat's lead in generic Congressional polling has shrunk to 3.6% from double digits only a few weeks ago. Especially vulnerable are Democratic freshman congressmen defending tradionally Republican seats.

The Democratic party leaders are not going to let all of that slip away without a fight. Given that those who said that the Palin pick was not a "game changer" have been proven totally wrong, the only remaining game changer for Democrats is a sudden illness for Senator Biden and an Obama-Clinton ticket.

The Joe Biden Health Watch is on.

What Recession?

2008-08-28T17:47:00.002-04:00

Cross-posted from McCain Victory 08.

Will the Democrats continue to bash John McCain and President Bush for the awful economy? You know the one that is in recession. Well, not so much.

NEXT WEEK'S GOP Convention should highlight fact that this media "recession" meme is DEAD. Also US average incomes have as of 2006 (last year prior to the Obama-Biden Congressional takeover) officially surpassed that of the Clinton years (2000), according to latest Census & IRS releases.

Standard economic texts maintain anything over 3% is recognized as ABOVE AVERAGE post-war (WWII) US growth rate.

Economy Grew 3.3% in 2nd Quarter,
Much Higher Than Initial Reading
By KELLY EVANS [WSJ]
August 28, 2008 2:57 p.m.

The U.S. economy grew much faster than originally thought from April to June, but the pace is expected to slow over the rest of the year.

Gross domestic product grew at a seasonally adjusted 3.3% annual rate during the second quarter, according to the Commerce Department, which originally put growth at a 1.9% pace. The revision, released Thursday, reflects new data showing that exports were even stronger than first estimated and that business inventories weren't depleted as much as thought earlier.

[ . . . . ]

The report also indicated that inflation remains relatively muted.

Because the GDP data are volatile and revised several times before becoming final, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the nonprofit group that is the arbiter of recessions, will likely wait several months before determining if and when a U.S. recession began. The group doesn't follow the popular rule of thumb -- that a recession is two consecutive quarters of declining GDP. Instead, it scrutinizes a range of data, including employment and output.

A smaller trade gap -- due to growing exports and slowing imports -- combined to add 3.1 percentage points to the second-quarter GDP growth rate. Global demand for U.S. goods, bolstered by a weak dollar that makes those goods cheaper to customers abroad, has been a crucial source of strength for the economy.

Different Roads on Tax Policy

2008-08-22T01:11:00.000-04:00

This Week at the Tax Foundation

McCain, Obama Take Different Roads on Tax Policy

In a recent Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact, Robert Carroll, the Foundation's Vice President for Economic Policy, examines tax relief proposals from Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama. With the economy as one of the top issues among the American electorate this presidential election cycle, both candidates have been using the issues of health care, gas prices, and housing devaluation, among others, to preface their economic proposals. But Carroll explains that the candidates have significantly different tax policies that address these issues.

"Senator Obama has included a set of carefully targeted tax proposals that narrowly aim benefits to specific types of taxpayers, while Senator McCain provides broad tax relief with benefits that are indirect," says Carroll. "In both cases, tax relief is provided to the vast majority of the electorate."

Read the new Tax Foundation Fiscal Fact. More on the presidential candidates' tax plans.

Porker of the month,,,Chris Dodd

2008-07-02T21:43:00.000-04:00

Porker of the Month: Sen. Christoper Dodd

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) has named Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) Porker of the Month for accepting a preferential mortgage from a company that stands to benefit from housing legislation the senator is pushing through Congress. Sen. Dodd acknowledged receiving a “VIP” loan from Countrywide Financial Corporation, but denied that he knew the designation meant he would be enjoying special privileges. According to published reports, Sen. Dodd’s special mortgage rate reduces his costs by $75,000 over the 30-year life of the mortgage. Countrywide, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender and the largest lender of sub-prime mortgages, has lost billions of dollars in the mortgage crisis. The unsettling revelations about Sen. Dodd’s sweetheart mortgage deal come as the senator is pushing a bill that offers mortgage lenders an opportunity to offload up to $300 billion of their riskiest loans onto the Federal Housing Administration, which would provide new loans with 100 percent of the liability falling on taxpayers. For accepting special financial discounts from a mortgage company whose actions contributed directly to the current housing mess and then drafting a monstrous mortgage bailout bill that will dump billions of dollars worth of risky mortgages onto the backs of taxpayers while lending a helping hand to his corporate benefactor, CAGW names Sen. Christopher Dodd its June 2008 Porker of the Month. Read more about the Porker of the Month.

And here is the rest of it.

Conservative Candidates Can Not Wait

2008-06-29T02:45:00.001-04:00

John McCain is correct . . .

We have entered a critical phase of the campaign season. Senator Obama and his liberal friends have pulled out all the stops in their cynical campaign of distortions and outright lies, and with the help of their special interest allies are continuing to raise staggering amounts of money.

Collectively the Obama campaign and their cohorts have turned their full attention- and their massive war chest - toward defeating conservative candidates up and down the ticket.

They have begun their assaults against conservatives in earnest, and we must immediately respond.

To battle back against their barrage of media attacks the McCain Camp has authorized and approved their own media advertising in every key battleground state from coast to coast. These ads have started running and tell the true story of McCain service, his leadership, and hopefully introduce many undecided voters to the bold solutions he will bring to the White House. We have done the same in selecting conservative candidates.

Purchasing media time is extraordinarily expensive . . . and it will draw down heavily on our financial resources. But we have no other choice. Liberals are outspending conservatives at an alarming rate . . . especially in congressional races.

So please click here to rush conservative candidates an emergency media contribution of $20 or $50

There is not a moment to waste!

Folks we are counting on our closest friends, men and women like you , who have remained by our side throughout this rough and tumble campaign season to stand by conservatives once again at this critical juncture. The scale is much larger and the stakes are as high as ever. We have to focus on all of our conservative brothers and sisters across the Nation.

We will run respectful campaigns - but will not shy away from fairly showing voters the clear differences between our vision for our nation's future and that of the liberals . . . and the differences could not be more stark.

Our vision for a better America calls for strong economic growth policies, including tax cuts, free and fair trade and energy independence. These pro-growth policies will help create jobs, increase wages and make our economy more secure.

The liberal rhetoric speaks glowingly of new jobs, opportunities and economic growth. But the specifics of their plans call for massive tax hikes, strangling regulations and more government control of the economy. This is a recipe for grinding our economy to a halt, not growing it.

Our vision for America in the world is one of strength and clear purpose. We must strengthen and improve our military force that is already second to none. We must complete our mission in Iraq with victory by establishing a stable, democratic government. We must continue to press al Qaeda and disrupt terrorist networks. We must establish a League of Democracies that will work with us to apply pressure to promote peace, stop genocide and improve human rights throughout this world.

The liberals vision of America's role in the world is dangerously naive. They have promised to retreat from Iraq without fully considering the risks. They have advocated negotiating with rogue dictators without preconditions. And they have promised to abrogate trade agreements and turn their back on vital allies and trading partners.

The American people deserve more. We need a President who has a record of change versus merely rhetoric of change. We need a President whose judgment is proven and who is ready to be commander in chief on day one. We need strong conservatives who share our core beliefs across the nation to be shown our full support.

You can be sure Barack Obama and his liberal allies will do everything in their power to muddy the waters, distort our records and distract voters with baseless claims. They will hit hard - and they will hit fast. We will take the blows - but we must be able to fight back quickly with strength and the truth.

That is why our media campaigns for conservatives are so critically important. Our ads will clearly delineate the sharp contrasts between liberals and us. We simply must have the financial resources to fully implement our media campaigns - and your immediate contribution is essential.

Running TV ads in states from Pennsylvania to New Mexico is extremely costly. A 30 second national ad on The O'Reilly Factor costs $25,000. So it takes 500 supporters each giving $50. to run just that one ad!

Friends, we must raise millions to keep our media campaigns running. And to do that we need you to make a contribution of $10 or even $50 today!

Our campaigns have been called futile, yet we have succeeded despite being under funded and practically written off. All is not lost for conservatives! We must have perseverance and faith that the voters will continue to listen to our message and cast their ballot for experienced leadership and a renewed sense of optimism for America as well as the core beliefs that made America the greatest nation in the world.

We've been through this before. We are running against better funded opponents, but we have the RIGHT message and the RIGHT vision. If we continue to hold strong and stand together, we will win.

Visit the Let's Get This Right Contribution link to help a conservative candidate now.And here is the rest of it.

AZAMATTEROPRINCIPLE: New Jersey for McCain: New Blog: Vets For McCain

2008-04-12T03:12:00.000-04:00

AZAMATTEROPRINCIPLE: New Jersey for McCain: New Blog: Vets For McCain

New Jersey for McCain: New Blog: Vets For McCain

2008-04-12T03:11:00.000-04:00

New Jersey for McCain: New Blog: Vets For McCain

Here is the beginning of my post. And here is the rest of it.

Great McCain Links

2008-04-12T03:06:00.001-04:00

I found a great link over at NJ4McCain regarding Vets For McCain. For more great McCain Links...

McCain Victory 08
The Mad Irishman
Politico Mafioso
NH4McCain
John McCain 2008
Ali Akbar,AzaMatterofact, AzaMatteroPrinciple, Blogs4McCain, BroadSideoftheBarn, ElectionNightHQ, Hoosiers4McCain, Iowa4McCain, McCain Blogettes, McCain States, McCain Talk, McCainVictory08, McCain Campaign Blog, Metaxupolis, My McCain Blog, NH4McCain, NJ4McCain, Pardon My French, Partisan American, PoliticoMafioso, Purple People Vote, Reality Bytes, Respectfully Republican, Stand Up For McCain>The Mad Irishman, The McCain Times, Vote McCain, With Both Hands, Porter County Politics, But I am a Liberal.Blue and New, Brainster, California Thoughts and Dreams, College Kid for McCain, McCain Monitor, Empty Rhetoric, Andrew Jones for America, JohnnyMillerBlog, Keystone for Victory, Michigan4McCain, Why McCain, and Wisconsin4McCain.

OMB Watch Launches New Resource Center

2008-03-31T16:45:00.001-04:00

OMB Watch Launches Regulatory Resource Center

Today, OMB Watch launched a web-based Regulatory Resource Center at www.ombwatch.org/regresources. The Resource Center provides tips for advocates who want to get involved in regulatory decision making and educational resources for anyone interested in how the federal regulatory process works.

The first part of the Regulatory Resource Center is the Advocacy Center. The Advocacy Center shows users how to comment on federal regulations and provides instructions for using Regulations.gov, the government's portal for public comments. The Advocacy Center also has instructions for filing a petition for rulemaking and tips on how to find rules in the Federal Register.

The second part of the Resource Center is the Policy Library. The Policy Library contains a flowchart showing how rules move through the regulatory pipeline; a list and brief description of rulemaking agencies; background information describing how the regulatory process works from beginning to end; and a glossary of common terms relating to regulation. The Policy Library also has a reference section, which provides links to legislation, executive orders, and government reports on regulatory policy.

In October 2007, OMB Watch released a developmental version of the Regulatory Resource Center and surveyed the public for comments and ideas. Responses to the survey were overwhelmingly positive. A number of respondents complimented OMB Watch on its efforts to centralize all information about the regulatory process in one place. One respondent called it "a tremendous gift to citizens and to students."

OMB Watch will continue to improve the site based on public needs, comments, and concerns. We welcome and encourage feedback at any time. Please e-mail us with your comments at RegResources@ombwatch.org.

With Tax Increases Like This, Who Needs Pork?

2008-03-27T21:41:00.004-04:00

Today, Sen. Obama Is Scheduled To Give A Major Address On The Economy:

"Obama Has A Major Economic Address In New York [On March 27, 2008]." (Mike Allen, "Obama To Hit McCain On Economy," The Politico's "Playbook," 3/26/08)

OBAMA'S HIGH TAX PLATFORM AND RECORD WOULD HURT THE ECONOMY

Obama Has Proposed A Laundry List Of Tax Hikes On The Campaign Trail, Which Would Hurt The Economy:

Obama Has Called For Higher Income Taxes, Social Security Taxes, Investment Taxes, And Corporate Taxes, As Well As "Massive New Domestic Spending." "Obama's transformation, if you go by his campaign so far, would mean higher income taxes, higher Social Security taxes, higher investment taxes, higher corporate taxes, massive new domestic spending, and a healthcare plan that perhaps could be the next step to a full-scale, single-payer system. Is that what most Americans want, someone who will fulfill a Democratic policy wish list?" (James Pethokoukis, "Barack Hussein Reagan? Ronald Wilson Obama?" U.S. News & World Report's "Capital Commerce" Blog, www.usnews.com, 2/12/08)

Obama Has Also Called For Tax Hikes On "Dirty Energy" Such As Coal And Natural Gas. Obama: "What we ought to tax is dirty energy, like coal and, to a lesser extent, natural gas." ("Q&A With Sen. Barack Obama," San Antonio Express-News, 2/19/08)
The Wall Street Journal's Stephen Moore: "[Obama] doesn't believe that raising tax rates is going to hurt the economy and if he becomes President ... tax rates will go up almost across the board." (The Wall Street Journal Website, www.wsj.com, Accessed 2/13/08)

CNBC's Larry Kudlow: "[Obama] has a very punitive high-tax campaign plan for the economy." (Larry Kudlow, "Obama, The Very-High-Tax Candidate," National Review's "The Corner" Blog, nationalreview.com, 2/11/08)

Ben Stein: "Mr. Obama could become president and derail everything because his understanding of economics is 100 percent wrong. ... I must say I'm so scared about Mr. Obama becoming president. I can hardly tell you." (CNBC's "Kudlow & Company," 2/14/08)

Alan Reynolds, Senior Fellow At The Cato Institute: "In Short, Obama Is A 'Tax-And-Spend' Liberal..." (Alan Reynolds, Op-Ed, "Tax Delusions," New York Post, 2/15/08)

Obama Said He'd Provide Tax Relief For Working Families, But Voted For A Budget That Raises Taxes On Americans Earning As Little As $31,850:

Obama: "We could be fighting to put the American dream within reach for every American - by giving tax breaks to working families ..." (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks On Iraq And The Economy, Charleston, WV, 3/20/08)

Obama Voted In Favor Of The Democrats' FY 2009 Budget. "Adoption of the concurrent resolution that would set broad spending and revenue targets over the next five years. The resolution would allow up to $1 trillion in discretionary spending for 2009." (S. Con. Res. 70, CQ Vote #85: Adopted 51-44: R 2-43; D 47-1; I 2-0, 3/14/08, Obama Voted Yea)

The Democrats' Budget Would Raise Taxes On Individuals Earning As Little As $31,850. "Under both Democratic plans, tax rates would increase by 3 percentage points for each of the 25 percent, 28 percent and 33 percent brackets. At present, the 25 percent bracket begins at $31,850 for individuals and $63,700 for married couples. The 35 percent bracket on incomes over $349,700 would jump to 39.6 percent." (Andrew Taylor, "Presidential Hopefuls To Vote On Budget," The Associated Press, 3/13/08)

The Club For Growth's Andrew Roth Notes The Budget Would Result In "The Largest Tax Hike In U.S. History." "The Democrats' FY09 budget does not extend the Bush tax cuts. As a result, Americans are set to be hammered with the largest tax hike in U.S. history." (Andrew Roth, "Tax Hike Impact By Congressional District," The Club For Growth's "Club For Growth" Blog, www.clubforgrowth.org, 3/12/08)

OBAMA HAS A LIBERAL SPENDING AGENDA; CONTRADICTS CLAIM HE'S FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE

Obama's Liberal Spending "Suggests A Lack Of Seriousness In Confronting The Nation's Fiscal Condition":

"Hillary Clinton And Barack Obama Champion Fiscal Responsibility On The Campaign Trail, But Both Democratic Presidential Hopefuls Are Promising Massive New Spending Without Providing Details On How They'd Pay For It." (Kevin G. Hall and Margaret Talev, "Clinton, Obama Ignore Budget Crisis, Promise Billions," McClatchy Newspapers, 2/22/08)

USA Today: "[C]linton and Obama both offer a long list of new spending proposals that suggests a lack of seriousness in confronting the nation's fiscal condition. Obama has received more criticism, perhaps deservedly so, because his list is somewhat longer." (Editorial, "Democrats Promise A Lot, But Who Will Pay The Bill?" USA Today, 2/25/08)

Robert Bixby, Executive Director Of The Concord Coalition, A Budget Watchdog Organization: "I couldn't help but think, 'Where is he [Obama] going to get the money to pay for these things?'" (Kevin G. Hall and Margaret Talev, "Clinton, Obama Ignore Budget Crisis, Promise Billions," McClatchy Newspapers, 2/22/08)

NOTE: Obama Claims He's Fiscally Conservative. Obama: "I am a progressive, but I always tell people that if you're a progressive you should be fiscally even more conservative than the so-called conservatives. ... The reason is, there are a lot of needs where we need to spend money, so we can't afford to waste money on stuff that we don't need." (April Castro, "Obama Touts Conservative Spending Approach," The Associated Press, 2/28/08)

OBAMA PROPOSED AN INADEQUATE HOUSING PLAN

Obama's Plan To Alleviate The Mortgage Crisis Has Been Criticized By Economists And Industry Experts:

"Among The Proposals To Rescue Distressed Borrowers, The Obama Plan Was Singled Out For Criticism By Financial Industry Experts." (Jessica Holzer, "Major Bailout Is Unlikely On Sub-Prime Mortgages," The Hill, 9/4/07)

Obama Supports Creating A Mortgage "Bailout Fund." "[S]en. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who is vying with Clinton for their party's presidential nomination, advocated fining unscrupulous lenders to partially pay for a bailout fund for distressed borrowers." (Jessica Holzer, "Major Bailout Is Unlikely On Sub-Prime Mortgages," The Hill, 9/4/07)

"Opponents Argue That Bailouts Send The Wrong Message To Recipients And Do Nothing To Discourage Future Irresponsible Behavior." (Robert Schroeder, "Should Washington Come To Aid Of Troubled Borrowers?" Dow Jones' MarketWatch, 8/31/07)
"Economists Question Whether Obama's $10-Billion 'Foreclosure Prevention Fund' Would Cover The Thousands Of Americans Who Already Have Lost Homes And The Thousands More Who Are In Danger." (Stephen Braun, Nicholas Riccardi and Maria La Ganga, "Rivals Differ On Foreclosure Cure," Los Angeles Times, 2/21/08)
Obama Said Fining Lenders Would Only "Partially" Cover The Cost Of His $10 Billion Bailout Fund - So Do Taxpayers Have To Pay The Rest?

Obama: "We can partially pay for this fund by imposing penalties on lenders that acted irresponsibly or committed fraud." (Sen. Barack Obama, Op-Ed, "Fine Unscrupulous Mortgage Lenders," Financial Times [London, UK], 8/29/07)

Both Clinton's And Obama's Mortgage Proposals Would Place "Some Added Burden On Taxpayers." "On the housing front, both candidates have put forward proposals that would put at least some added burden on taxpayers." (Nick Timiraos, "Candidates Differ On Housing," The Wall Street Journal, 2/20/08)

OBAMA BACKS INCREASED GOVERNMENT ROLE IN THE ECONOMY

Obama Wants Larger Government Role In Free Market Economy:

Obama Said "We've Depended On Government Action To ... Make The Market Work Better." Obama: "[W]e have a tendency to take our free-market system as a given, to assume that it flows naturally from the laws of supply and demand and Adam Smith's invisible hand. ... And although the benefits of our free-market system have mostly derived from the individual efforts of generations of men and women pursuing their own vision of happiness, in each and every period of great economic upheaval and transition we've depended on government action to open up opportunity, encourage competition, and make the market work better." (Barack Obama, The Audacity Of Hope, 2006, p. 150)

Obama: "But our history should give us confidence that we don't have to choose between an oppressive, government-run economy and a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism. ... What might such a new economic consensus look like? ... [W]e can begin to modernize and rebuild the social contract that FDR first stitched together in the middle of the last century." (Barack Obama, The Audacity Of Hope, 2006, pp. 158-159)

OBAMA'S POOR TAX, SPENDING AND BUSINESS INTEREST GROUP RATINGS

Obama Received A "Perfect Liberal Score" On Economic Issues From The National Journal:

"In 2006, [Obama] Was One Of 13 Senate Democrats With A Perfect Liberal Score On Economic Issues." (Richard E. Cohen, "Left To Right," National Journal, 3/3/07)

Obama Gets Poor Marks From Tax, Spending And Business Interest Groups:

Americans For Tax Reform Gave Obama A Lifetime Rating Of 7.5 Out Of 100. (Americans For Tax Reform Website, www.atr.org, Accessed 1/29/08)

Citizens Against Government Waste Gave Obama A Lifetime Rating Of 22 Out Of 100. (Citizens Against Government Waste, "CCAGW Challenges Presidential Candidates On Earmarks," Press Release, 12/27/07)

The National Taxpayers Union Gave Obama A Grade Of "F" For His Fiscal Voting Record. (National Taxpayers Union Website, www.ntu.org, Accessed 9/25/07)

The U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Gave Obama A 55 Percent Rating In 2006. (U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Website, www.uschamber.com, Accessed 9/17/07)And here is the rest of it.

McCain Versus the Pork Addicts

2008-03-20T01:31:00.001-04:00

By Robert Novak.

WASHINGTON -- The congressional Republican establishment's charade, pretending to crack down on spending earmarks while actually preserving their uncontrolled addiction to pork, faces embarrassment this week when the Democratic-designed budget is brought to the Senate floor. The party's presidential nominee-presumptive, Sen. John McCain, is an uncompromising pork buster with no use for the evasions by Republican addicts on Capitol Hill.

Sen. Jim DeMint, a first-term reform Republican from South Carolina, will propose a no-loopholes one-year moratorium on earmarks as a budget amendment. McCain has announced his support for the DeMint amendment and will co-sponsor it. DeMint wants to coordinate McCain's visits from the campaign trail to the Senate floor so the candidate can be there to speak for and vote for the moratorium.

The irony could hardly be greater. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, an ardent earmarker, is smart enough politically to realize how unpopular the practice is with the Republican base. Consequently, McConnell combines anti-earmark rhetoric with evasive tactics to save pork. But McCain, surely not the presidential candidate that McConnell wanted, is leading his party with a pledge to veto any bill containing earmarks. McConnell is running for re-election from Kentucky bragging about the pork he has brought the state.

Read the rest of the article here.

Barack Obama on Iraq - Change You Can Count On.

2008-03-20T01:19:00.001-04:00

OBAMA'S IRAQ TIMELINE
Where Does Obama Stand After Several Years Of Contradictory Statements And Failed Leadership On Iraq?
______________________________________________________________________

2008

Today, Obama Is Scheduled To Give A Speech On The Fifth Anniversary Of The Iraq War:

"[W]ednesday, March 19, 2008, Five Years After The Iraq War Began, Sen. Barack Obama Will Deliver A Major Speech On The War In Iraq And Our National Security In Fayetteville, N.C." (Ben Smith, "Moving On From Race," The Politico's "Ben Smith's Blog," www.politico.com, 3/18/08)

2007

Obama Introduced Iraq Withdrawal Legislation, Then Warned That Insurgents Would Wait Us Out:

"[O]nly After Mr. Obama Opened A Presidential Exploratory Committee Did He Introduce Legislation To Withdraw American Combat Brigades From Iraq By March 31, 2008." (Jeff Zeleny, "As Candidate, Obama Carves Antiwar Stance," The New York Times, 2/26/07; S. 433, Introduced 1/30/07)

At The Same Time That He Supported Withdrawal, Obama Warned That Iraqi Insurgents Would Just "Lie Low" Until American Troops Leave. Obama: "What the militias are essentially doing is they've just pulled back. They've said as long as there's these increased troop presence, we'll lie low, we'll wait it out. As soon as the Americans start leaving and redeploying into other areas, we will come back in..." (CNN's "Larry King Live," 3/19/07)

2006

Obama Warned Against A "Precipitous Withdrawal ... Driven By Congressional Edict":

Obama Warned Against A "Precipitous Withdrawal ... Driven By Congressional Edict." Obama: "[H]aving visited Iraq, I'm also acutely aware that a precipitous withdrawal of our troops, driven by Congressional edict rather than the realities on the ground, will not undo the mistakes ... It could compound them. It could compound them by plunging Iraq into an even deeper and, perhaps, irreparable crisis." (Sen. Barack Obama, Congressional Record, 6/21/06, p. S6233)

Obama: "A Hard And Fast, Arbitrary Deadline For Withdrawal Offers Our Commanders In The Field, And Our Diplomats In The Region, Insufficient Flexibility To Implement That Strategy." (Sen. Barack Obama, Congressional Record, 6/21/06, p. S6233)

2005

11 Months After Being Elected To The Senate, Obama Gave His First Major Foreign Policy Speech On Iraq, Which Repeated Ideas Already Voiced By Other Democrats:

"[Obama] Campaigned Strongly Against The War In His Bid For The Senate In 2004, But When He Arrived In Washington He Waited 11 Months To Deliver A Major Speech On Iraq." (Jeff Zeleny, "As Candidate, Obama Carves Antiwar Stance," The New York Times, 2/26/07)

Obama's First Major Address On Iraq Repeated Ideas Already Voiced By Other Democrats. "In his campaign, Obama forcefully opposed the war, yet it wasn't until late November that he delivered his first major Iraq policy address. And by the time he reached the lectern at the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, other Democrats already had articulated many of the same ideas about not immediately withdrawing troops from Iraq." (Jeff Zeleny, "The First Time Around," Chicago Tribune, 12/25/05)

2004

Obama Said He Did Not Know How He Would Have Voted On The Iraq War And Claimed There Was "Not Much Of A Difference" Between His Position And The President's Position:

Obama Said He Didn't Know How He Would Have Voted On The Iraq War Resolution. "In a recent interview, [Obama] declined to criticize Senators Kerry and Edwards for voting to authorize the war, although he said he would not have done the same based on the information he had at the time. 'But, I'm not privy to Senate intelligence reports,' Mr. Obama said. 'What would I have done? I don't know. What I know is that from my vantage point the case was not made.'" (Monica Davey, "A Surprise Senate Contender Reaches His Biggest Stage Yet," The New York Times, 7/26/04)

Obama Said There Was Not Much Of A Difference Between His Position And The President's Position On Iraq. "'On Iraq, on paper, there's not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago,' Obama said. 'There's not much of a difference between my position and George Bush's position at this stage.'" (John Kass, "Obama's A Star Who Doesn't Stick To The Script," Chicago Tribune, 7/27/04)

2003

Obama Said He Would Have Opposed Funding For The War If He Were In The Senate:

Obama: "Just this week, when I was asked, would I have voted for the $87 billion, I said no. And I said no unequivocally, because, at a certain point, we have to say no to George Bush. If we keep on getting steamrolled, we are not going to stand a chance." (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks To The New Trier Democratic Organization, 11/16/03)

2002

Obama Calculated The Political Risks Of Opposing The War, Then Gave A Speech In Line With A Key Constituency:

Obama Considered The Political Implications Before Deciding To Publically Oppose The War. "Moreover, even [Obama's former campaign manager Dan] Shomon concedes that Obama discussed the politics of his speech beforehand. 'what about the people that are for the war?' Obama asked him. 'Am I gonna have damage politically?'" (Michael Crowley, "Cinderella Story," The New Republic, 2/27/08)

Obama's Anti-War Views Were In Line With The Liberal Voting Block He Needed To Support His 2004 Senate Run. "With war looming in the fall of 2002, Obama was preparing a long-shot run for an open U.S. Senate seat ... Obama's best shot at the Democratic nomination involved consolidating a coalition of lakefront liberals and African Americans. ... [T]hough it may have been unpopular to oppose the war in Washington, that was not the case among liberals in Chicago-- among the first cities to pass an antiwar resolution." (Michael Crowley, "Cinderella Story," The New Republic, 2/27/08) .

Obama A Uniter?

2008-03-04T15:21:00.001-05:00

In Case You Missed It: Obama: A Thin Record For A Bridge Builder

From The Washington Post

By David Ignatius
Op-Ed
March 2, 2008

Hillary Clinton has been trying to make a point about Barack Obama that deserves one last careful look before Tuesday's probably decisive Democratic primaries: If Obama truly intends to unite America across party lines and break the Washington logjam, then why has he shown so little interest or aptitude for the hard work of bipartisan government?

This is the real "Where's the beef?" about Obama, and it still doesn't have a good answer. ...

But for voters to feel confident that he can achieve this transformation should he become president, they would need evidence that he has fought and won similar battles. The record here, to put it mildly, is thin.

What I hear from politicians who have worked with Obama, both in Illinois state politics and here in Washington, gives me pause. They describe someone with an extraordinary ability to work across racial lines but not someone who has earned any profiles in courage for standing up to special interests or divisive party activists. ...

[H]e also gained a reputation for skipping tough votes. The most famous example was a key gun control vote that he missed in December 1999 because he was vacationing in Hawaii. The Chicago Tribune blasted him and several other vote-skippers as "gutless." One Chicago pol says that "the myth developed that when there was a tough vote, he was gone." ...

[W]hat stands out in his brief Senate career is his liberal voting record, not a history of fighting across party lines to get legislation passed. He wasn't part of the 2005 Gang of 14 bipartisan coalition that sought to break the logjam on judicial nominations, but neither were Clinton or other prominent Democrats. ...

[O]bama bears no obvious political scars for fighting bipartisan battles that were unpopular with his party's base.

"The authentic Barack Obama? We just don't know. The level of uncertainty is too high," one Democratic senator told me last week. He noted that Obama hasn't been involved in any "transformative battles" where he might anger any of the party's interest groups. "If his voting record in the past is the real Barack Obama, then there isn't going to be any bipartisanship," this senator cautioned. ...

To View The Entire Article, Please Visit: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022902784.html

McCain - Prepared To Lead

2008-03-02T23:49:00.000-05:00

Obama

2008-02-27T03:38:00.000-05:00

They Said It!

State Sen. Dan Cronin (R-IL) On Barack Obama's State Senate Record

State Sen. Cronin: "You know, I hate to burst the bubble. There's been a lot of hype and, you know, when he [Obama] served down here, his career was not particularly distinguished. ... There were no bold solutions. There were no creative proposals to take on the establishment. He's a Cook County Democrat and he went along with the program."

ABC News' Terry Moran: "The program, Cronin and others argue, was a traditional liberal agenda and, in fact, Obama was considered a reliable liberal Democratic vote in Illinois. For instance, voting for most gun control measures, opposing efforts to ban so-called partial birth abortions and supporting hundreds of tax increases."

(ABC's "Nightline," 2/25/08)
And here is the rest of it.

GUTS

2007-10-31T15:09:00.000-04:00

John McCain's newest TV ad.

This is why Citizens Against Government Waste call McCain a "Taxpayer's Hero. Maybe not as fun as the Woodstock ad but it gets the point across.

Senate Guts Earmark Reform

2007-10-11T21:17:00.002-04:00

Amanda Carpenter over at TownHall has a great article on the senate's little 3 word change that guts earmark reform. And here is the rest of it. A three-word rule change quietly made to Congress’s newly-enacted lobby reform package was recently discovered that significantly reduces disclosure requirements for the earmarks each senator requests.
The new ethics bill, which was signed into law in September, purported to require members of both the House and Senate to make public a signed letter that included the name and address of the intended recipient, or location of any requested earmark.
U.S. President George W. Bush shows a pile of earmark papers that he said were wasteful special interest spending proposals that lawmakers often slip into legislation, during remarks about the economy at Micron Technology in Manassas, Virginia February 6, 2007. REUTERS/Jason Reed (UNITED STATES)
Related Media:
VIDEO: Murtha's Missing Earmarked Center
The final bill, however, contained an exception for members of the Senate. Instead, senators who request earmarks are only required to make public a letter that verifies he or she has “no pecuniary interest” their request

New Jersey for McCain: The Conservative Voice: McCain Superior on Battling Pork

2007-09-28T04:46:00.000-04:00

New Jersey for McCain: The Conservative Voice: McCain Superior on Battling Pork

MY MONEY!!! MY MONEY !!!

2007-07-24T13:08:00.000-04:00

This video is from an E-mail from Pat Toomey, President of Club for Growth that Debbie from Right Truth passed along. It shows two things. 1) Rep. Don Young, (R-AK) in full meltdown on the floor of the House and 2) in barely 3 minutes shows how insidious the problem of pork barrel spending is than I could hope to in 3 years of blogging.

There is more from that e-mail later in this post including a great speech by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ). Learn more about the dust up between Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Nelson’s $7.5 million earmark for a company his son works for. BTW, the company gets 80% of its revenues from government grants. There is more about Rep. Jack Murtha’s latest pork projects, $7.5 billion in unclaimed Senate earmarks in the 10 appropriations bills currently being hashed out and Citizens Against Government Waste provides details about the Fiscal 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Act. READ MORE

Shared with all my friends Outside the Beltway, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson's Website, The Random Yak, guerrilla radio, DeMediacratic Nation, Big Dog's Weblog, Webloggin, Stuck On Stupid, Cao's Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Leaning Straight Up, The Pet Haven, Conservative Cat, Conservative Thoughts, Nuke's news and views, Pirate's Cove, Planck's Constant, The Pink Flamingo, Dumb Ox Daily News, Right Voices, and Public Eye, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe

This report by William La Jeunesse of Fox News explains the controversy behind the dust up between Sens. Coburn and Nelson over the latter’s $7.5 million earmark for 21st Century Systems, Inc.

Coburn claims the Pentagon has not ordered any of 21 CSI's technology through the normal budgeting process, and military officials told Coburn it did not ask for and does not need the program. Instead, friends in Congress got the money for 21CSI outside the competitive process through earmarks.

From Bill Allison’s Blog over at the Sunlight Foundation, there seems to be some “Back Sliding on Earmark Reform” which also touches on Sen. Nelson’s $7.5 million for his sons company.

Phil Kerpen’s Blog over at the Americans for Prosperity points two more outrageous Earmarks by Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA)for a Department of Energy project in his district DOE says it doesn’t want and
$300,000 for the Belmont Center, a swimming and ice-skating center.

“The earmark is supposedly to improve handicapped access. Yet I already see a big wheelchair ramp in the picture on the web site, and I'm not sure any amount of federal dollars will make it practical for handicapped people to go ice-skating, but I'm no expert.”

Manu Raju of The Hill reports http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/7.5b-earmarks-unclaimed-2007-07-17.html that there are $7.5 billion in unclaimed Senate Earmarks according to analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense.

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today released a list of the most egregious pork-barrel projects in the House version of the Fiscal 2008 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations Act. The cost of the 1,305 projects is a whopping $277.9 million. Both sides of the aisle stuck their greedy hands into the Labor/HSS Education pot to bring home cash to their districts.

You can read details here.

And last but not least from the E-mail from Pat Toomey, President of Club for Growth that Debbie from Right Truth passed along.

Below is a wondeful speech that Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) recently gave on the House floor about earmark reform. On the same day as that speech, Flake offered an amendment to defund a mysterious pork project in an appropriations bill. Flake's office couldn't even confirm that the earmark's recipient existed! Worse still, the subcommittee chairman in charge of the bill couldn't confirm it either. In the end, the House voted to support the project, even without confirmation. Watch this video to witness the whole debate.

Speech by Jeff Flake on the U.S. House floor on Tuesday, July 17, 2007.
"Mr. Speaker, I rise today out of concern for what earmarks are doing to this body. Those of us on the Republican side understand very well the political perils of this practice. Unfettered earmarking, and the corruption that accompanies it, was a major factor in putting us right where we are today: squarely in the minority.
"But there are greater concerns than which party is in the majority. I would hope that all of us, Republicans and Democrats, would be concerned about what earmarks are doing to the practice of authorization, appropriation, and oversight that has been the hallmark of this institution for more than two centuries.
"Proponents of earmarking defend the practice by noting that Article One of the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse, and that earmarking is consistent with that responsibility. It is true that Congress has the power of the purse. But the contemporary practice of earmarking circumvents, rather than enhances, the careful execution of our responsibility as stewards of public funds.
"Take the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill that we will consider this week. Under the new earmark rules adopted earlier this year, a list of earmarks accompanies the conference report. We received that list late last week. It contains 1,300 earmarks. Are we to assume that each of these 1,300 projects have been individually scrubbed to ensure their appropriateness to the legislation?
"I suspect that, as the distinguished Chairman of the Appropriations Committee said just weeks ago, there is no way to adequately screen these earmarks given the tight appropriation schedule. The question needs to be asked: Why are we so bent on moving forward with so many earmarks when we know we can't adequately screen them?
"I should note that no House earmarks were approved in last year's Labor-HHS bill. Last time I checked, the world didn't come crashing to a halt. What's more, owing to the politics surrounding the bill, no earmarks were approved the year before that. Here again, the planets seemed to stay in their orbit. The Chairman has frequently pointed out that, until a decade ago, the Labor-HHS bill wasn't earmarked at all. So, why are we so insistent on approving 1,300 earmarks this week, earmarks that we know haven't been adequately vetted and scrubbed?
"Perhaps the most frequent justification for the contemporary practice of earmarking is that, quote, 'Members of Congress know their districts better than some faceless bureaucrat in Washington, DC.' I'm not here to defend faceless bureaucrats. In fact, faceless bureaucrats often waste money on questionable projects in my own district. Faceless bureaucrats in federal agencies waste so much money that they need someone constantly looking over their shoulder. This is why congressional oversight is so important.
"But, let's face it: when we approve congressional earmarks for indoor rainforests in Iowa or teapot museums in North Carolina, we make the most spendthrift faceless bureaucrat look frugal. Excess by federal agencies should not excuse congressional excess. If federal agencies don't follow procedures requiring competitive bidding or other processes we have mandated, we should act by cutting funding and/or mandating improvements, not trying to one-up them with equally suspect appropriations.
"As an aside, we saw just weeks ago that the majority of this chamber chose to deny funding for an earmark requested by an individual member. For the record, I offered the amendment to deny funding for the "Perfect Christmas Tree Project." There was no federal nexus and it was not a wise use of federal dollars. But it was no less worthy than hundreds of projects funded by the same legislation. I would like to conclude that the amendment succeeded thanks to the compelling case I presented, but I suspect that political payback had more to do with it.
"The distribution of earmarks is based on politics, not policy. Most appropriations bills award 60 percent of the earmarks to the majority party and 40 percent to the minority party. Is there a policy reason for this allocation that can reverse itself with an election? In most appropriations bills, well-positioned members award themselves many more earmarks than rank and file members receive. Are we to assume that districts represented by well-positioned Members are needier than those represented by less seasoned Members of Congress? In some appropriations bills, each member of the committee is given an equal share of the available dollars. Are we to assume here that these districts have identical needs?
"The truth is, we can try all we want to conjure up some sort of noble pedigree for the contemporary practice of earmarking, but we are just drinking our own bathwater if we think the public is buying it. It seems that over that past few years we've tried to increase the number of earmarks enough so that the plaudits we hear from earmark recipients will drown out the voices of taxpayers all over the country who have had enough. It hasn't worked, thank goodness. For every group that directly benefits from earmarks, there are hundreds who see it as a transparent gimmick to assure our own reelection.
"Mr. Speaker, our constituents deserve better, and this institution deserves better than we are giving it. Let's return to the time honored practice of authorization, appropriation, and oversight that has served us so well."

You Gotta Laugh To Keep From Cryin'

2007-07-18T00:56:00.000-04:00

Azamatteroprinciple Update. As the Appropriations bills come hot and heavy there are more and more stories about Pork Barrel Spending. Honestly, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I have said before my hope for this site is to be a clearing house of sorts for resources on the Internet for educating people about government spending, waste, corruption and abuse. This is a far from comprehensive update of recent news, sites and events from the web focusing on the problem. I would ask anyone with suggestions and/or other website/blog recommendations to e-mail me at azamatteroprinciple@gmail.com

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) wants $1 million for a Woodstock Museum. Sen. Daniel Inuoye (D-HI) wants $34 million for "Education of Native Hawaiians. Not to be out done, Sen. Kay Hutchinson (R-TX) has earmarks totaling roughly $500 million and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) is not far behind with $400 million. Click to read more about the best I have found recently on the web. Brit Hume on Special Report with Brit Hume had the story of Rep. Charles Rangell, Chairman, Ways and Means Committee (D-NY) requesting $2 million for the Charles B. Rangell Center for Public Service at City College of New York. Perhaps if he wanted to name it The Fat, Ignorant, Contemptuous of the Taxpayer, Bastard Center I might not be so upset. According to Hume on "The Political Grapevine" the list of earmarks runs hundreds of pages and would take hours to download even on a high speed internet connection. Luckily there is AZAMATTEROPRINCIPLE so all the information is only a few quick clicks away.

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste is driving Senators to adopt Sen. DeMint's (R-SC) tough earmark reforms. The C.A.G.W. also details pork barrel spending in the Senate appropriations for Transportation, Housing and Urban Development.

There are plenty of stories at Taxpayers for Common Sense regarding earmarks contained in all the appropriatins bills.

Americans for Prosperity questions the need for a Regional Prisons Museum in Kansas. Personally I think we should ALL question that one.

OMB Watch reports that stalled lobby reform bills will be resolved before August Recess.

There is a great blog about pork and corruption at Americans for Prosperity that I commend to your reading. They also have The Prodigal Sons of Pork(Is that like Son of a Pig?) which is a list of legilators who seem to have seen the light on pork.

Last and certainly not least, there is Porkbusters.org that has this...

Lots of Washington politicians talk a good case about eliminating wasteful federal spending but how many of them actually vote for needed reforms? The Examiner Newspapers/Porkbusters.org Earmark Reform Index shows who in the U.S. Senate is walking the talk and who's blowing smoke hoping voters don't look too closely.

I don't know why I get so upset. Oh. That's right. IT'S MY MONEY! and yours and yours and yours.

It’s not really a blog post unless I send it to my friends at Outside the Beltway, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, Perri Nelson's Website, Committees of Correspondence, Mark My Words, DeMediacratic Nation, Jeanette's Celebrity Corner, DragonLady's World, Webloggin, Cao's Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Conservative Cat, Pursuing Holiness, Conservative Thoughts, Right Celebrity, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, Pirate's Cove, Nuke's news and views, The Pink Flamingo, and High Desert Wanderer, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

A Cheesehead for Pork

2007-07-14T17:05:00.000-04:00

There are plenty of reasons not to like Rep. David Obey (D-WI). However an article in the recent U.S. News and World Report by Silla Burth, shows the galling level of contempt that Obey has for those of us particularly concerned about pork-barrel spending and taxpayers in general. "His homestate newspaper said he had gone from hero to villain in six months.
"Earding to the article marking is hardly new, but over the past few years, the practice of Washington lawmakers quietly tucking billions of dollars for their pet projects into spending bills has become a political cause célèbre. Democrat Rep. David Obey, a longtime reformer, tried for years to cut the influence of earmarks. But after the Dems took the House last fall, Obey took over the House Appropriations Committee, and he's now the one feeling the heat."

Rep. Obey has been in the House for 38 years and since regaining control, the Democrats have forgotten about their pledges of good governance and listening to the American people. Well certainly Obey has. "He dismisses earmark stories as little league and his opponents' tactics as silly young politics." He further opines that "Earmarking is a tiny little aspect of what happens." Of the $20 billion in additional spending, Obey describes it as "this little difference we have in discretionary spending."

$29 Billion in earmarks is LITTLE LEAGUE??? A $20 billion difference in discretionary spending is LITTLE? I am sorry Rep. Obey but they are not. While I am grateful to be part of a league, even a little one, and practicing "silly young politics" (Oh, to be young again) your obvious contempt for me and millions of taxpayers shows that in fact that it is you who are playing out of your league.

Trackposted to Outside the Beltway, Perri Nelson's Website, Right Truth, Shadowscope, Stuck On Stupid, Leaning Straight Up, The Amboy Times, Pursuing Holiness, third world county, Right Celebrity, Woman Honor Thyself, Wake Up America, Pirate's Cove, Nuke's news and views, The Pink Flamingo, CommonSenseAmerica, Church and State, Blog @ MoreWhat.com, guerrilla radio, DeMediacratic Nation, 123beta, Adam's Blog, Webloggin, Phastidio.net, Cao's Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, , Conservative Cat, Faultline USA, The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns, The World According to Carl, CORSARI D'ITALIA, Public Eye, and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

MORE FLYING PORK...

2007-07-08T20:02:00.000-04:00

Last week it was our tax dollars for an airport that no one has built. This week it is a jet engine that nobody wants.

Well, nobody in the military wants it. The engine in question is a spare for the Air Force’s F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. General Electric Aircraft Engines in Lynn, Massachusetts is designing the engine and says the project will bring jobs to the Bay State. That is where Sen. Ted Kennedy comes in.

According to the Boston Globe,

“Kennedy personally earmarked $100 million for the engine – more than 20% of its cost- during committee deliberations over the 2008 defense authorization bill.”

Kennedy knowing he would need other powerful senators to support the project, left $385 million to be earmarked by his partners in crime. He can be so generous with OUR money. Of course, the $485 million is not actually the cost of the engine project but just the cost to keep it alive. The program “is on a nearly half-billion dollar life support system” according to a recent posting on DefenseTech.org, a widely read military industry website. The Air Force spent $2.5 billion on the program before it decided “that it could not justify the parallel engine project, which could top $9 billion.

This project flies (pun intended) in the face of those who argue that earmarks are not actually extra spending but rather spending that is already in the budget but directed by specific legislators instead of a federal agency. The Air Force has not budgeted for this engine since 2005 and the two most recent Pentagon assessments concurred. “If you have to write a program explicitly into a piece of legislation it has generally failed all other cost-benefit analyses and otherwise would not have been approved.” According to Ronald D. Utt of The Heritage Foundation.

$9 billion of taxpayers money to create jobs in Ted Kennedy’s state building a jet engine that the Air Force doesn’t need or want. Ironically, there is no guarantee that GE, which has plants worldwide, would build the engine in Massachusetts so it is a $485 million crap shoot.

Finally, what is so striking about this earmark is that Ted Kennedy has spent so much time advocating controlling defense spending (perhaps control as in let him spend it as opposed to reducing it) while also excoriating the Bush Administration for failing to listen to the experts at the Pentagon on war policy.

Ted. The Pentagon experts have spoken. They don’t want or need the engine.

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