Is A Pork-Free Diet Killing the Tea Party

[nodoginnafight]

Jimmy Carter's fight against pork barrel spending turned his own party against him and turned him into a lame duck during the first year of his administration.

Relationship with Congress | Carter the Peanut Farmer

Is it possible that the Tea Party's insistence on banning earmarks is why they are losing influence on the Hill?

About the best example of bi-partisanship lately is the way Democrats and Republicans are beginning to make their case for lifting the ban on earmarks. They call pork barrel spending the grease that gets things done and the glue that holds together coalitions that get legislation passed.

Sen. Coburn: 'Porkers' Win if Congress Kills Earmarks Ban

If I were a betting man, I'd say that the ban on earmarks will soon be quietly and unceremoniously discarded.

I think we need to keep the ban on earmarks and discard lawmakers who can't get anything done without them.

 

[RandomVariable]

Watching the House debate, especially in committee, a Republican with rail against spending for a certain program but slip in a little, 'but my case is an exception'. Earmarks might have gotten a really bad name for themselves, some of that justified, but it seems counterproductive to eliminate earmarks altogether. They serve a very valuable function.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

How's that Brutal Sequester coming?

 

[bendog]

I don't know that the Coburn thing is really illustrative, but here in Miss a storm is ah-brewin. The TP challenger to Thad Cochran opposed Fema. We just had tornados, and Katrina is still a memory.

 

[buckeye45_73]

I have a huge issue with earmarks. Vote for bill or dont vote for it, quit fucking around with this this horse trading. They never pertaj to the bill and if you need a building in you disctrict ask for one, dont slip it in another law.....i fucking hate that corrupt ahit more than anything

 

[nodoginnafight]

Watching the House debate, especially in committee, a Republican with rail against spending for a certain program but slip in a little, 'but my case is an exception'. Earmarks might have gotten a really bad name for themselves, some of that justified, but it seems counterproductive to eliminate earmarks altogether. They serve a very valuable function.

I guess some projects may be legitimate, but how do you weed out the frivolous from the legitimate since they are rarely individually debated. They are most often passed out like Halloween candy for the good little boys and girls who vote in favor of a particular piece of legislation.

 

[nodoginnafight]

I don't know that the Coburn thing is really illustrative, but here in Miss a storm is ah-brewin. The TP challenger to Thad Cochran opposed Fema. We just had tornados, and Katrina is still a memory.

I don't consider FEMA an earmark. Especially the flood insurance - those people pay premiums for that insurance. IMHO it's wrong to accept the premiums and then balk on paying the claims.

 

[P@triot]

If I had a nickel for every time I heard a scared and desperate liberal proclaim "the Tea Party is dead" I'd be the world's first trillionaire right now...

Funny thing is, they are stronger and more influential than ever (hence the fear from the left)

 

[Derideo_Te]

I don't know that the Coburn thing is really illustrative, but here in Miss a storm is ah-brewin. The TP challenger to Thad Cochran opposed Fema. We just had tornados, and Katrina is still a memory.

I don't consider FEMA an earmark. Especially the flood insurance - those people pay premiums for that insurance. IMHO it's wrong to accept the premiums and then balk on paying the claims.

The TP'ers were opposed to paying out following Hurricane Sandy. How much of that was political as opposed to principal?

 

[nodoginnafight]

If I had a nickel for every time I heard a scared and desperate liberal proclaim "the Tea Party is dead" I'd be the world's first trillionaire right now...

Funny thing is, they are stronger and more influential than ever (hence the fear from the left)

Then I guess the ban on earmarks is safe, huh.
I guess we'll see. I'm not Tea Party fan, but I like the ban on earmarks.

 

[Edgetho]

"Earmarks" and pork aren't necessarily the same thing.

Let's say your wife gives you a $100 to spend at the grocery store and gives you a list with Milk, Coffee, Bread and other 'essentials' on it but tells you she wants a box of Oreos as well.

THAT is an earmark. You got your $100 and you can spend it on whatever you think best, after essentials, but if you forget the Box of Oreos, guess who's sleeping on the couch that night?

With me? It's a hundred bucks. You're not going to spend MORE than that, but included in the amount is her Oreos. Got it?

Now, if you go to the Store and spend the $100 on everything except what you need.... You go home with no Milk for the kids, no Coffee for Mama and no Dinner for anybody because you spent it at the Strip Joint, THAT is Pork because you STILL Need to spend "X" amount of dollars on groceries.

Not a real good explanation. Getting tired. But Pork is wasteful and usually a payoff to a constituency or constituents. Earmarks are just setting some already-approve money aside to be spent in a certain way.

Lousy explanation but I'm not in the mood to fix it.

 

[bendog]

I don't know that the Coburn thing is really illustrative, but here in Miss a storm is ah-brewin. The TP challenger to Thad Cochran opposed Fema. We just had tornados, and Katrina is still a memory.

I don't consider FEMA an earmark. Especially the flood insurance - those people pay premiums for that insurance. IMHO it's wrong to accept the premiums and then balk on paying the claims.

The TP'ers were opposed to paying out following Hurricane Sandy. How much of that was political as opposed to principal?

Exactly. And that's the issue with Cochran, or at least I hope that's how it pays. Fema and other govt programs will provide dollars for small biz to rebuild. Damaged public buildings will be more quickly repaired. Workers will return to work, and pay taxes. Businesses will be able to access courts and other buildings to get permits to do stuff like discharge pollutants into streams and the air at permissible levels. More workers will return to work.

I'm not for all earmarks either. I can provide examples of good things that could only have been built with federal dollars and trying to get 60 senators would have been impossible. But, the TPM on Sandy relief is something they need to be tied to a stake and burned over.

And Miss's hypocrisy on Katrina compared to Sandy is shameful.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

I'm sorry, but the earmark system is the root cause of one of the largest fundamental problems with how our government legislates.

Why in the fuck are we including all sorts of unrelated shit in a single law in the -first- place? Why would we want our legislators voting on anything -but- the crux of each issue? Why should people be voting up or down on a law that's going to effect 300 million people based on whether or not they get some extra building funds?

The acceptance of this bullshit method of "getting things done" is why we have laws that are 60,000 fucking pages long that nobody reads before they vote. We have government officials being asked about shit like that and saying, on television, that one can't realistically expect someone to take the insane amount of time it would require to read all these nonsensically large pieces of legislation before voting. Let that sink in. Lawmakers feel like it's not only justifiable, but OBVIOUSLY justifiable that they WOULDN'T READ LEGISLATION BEFORE DECIDING ON IT!

Part of the problem is that we've let our statist culture tell us that the value of our government can be determined by how much they "get done". Am I to believe that more legislation is automatically better legislation? We need to let them be a little corrupt and a little stupid about the laws they're passing so that they'll pass more of them? Where's the fucking logic in that?

WHY THE FUCK WOULD WE ACCEPT THIS!? Is it really worthwhile to let ignorance decide our fate for the benefit of having it decided more often and more rapidly? Is everybody -that- fucking stupid?

Sometimes, I wish I could resign my membership from this dumb fuck species.

 

[Edgetho]

dimocraps are some dishonest scum

ALL of them

The Sandy aid bill was loaded with pork and flexible spending that was not earmarked for Hurricane Sandy. Among the most egregious provisions compiled from both the liberal Huffington Post and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal were:

$13 billion to mitigate against future disasters including $188 million for Amtrak

$12.1 billion for the Community Development Fund, flexible spending often used to fund liberal activists

$600 million for climate change research

$348 million for the National Park Service

$150 million for fisheries in Alaska and Mississippi

Even a liberal objected to this spending. According to Politicker, outspoken Mayor Michael Bloomberg criticized “extraneous” provisions in the Sandy relief bill in a radio program and said it was to blame for the House’s delay in voting on the bill.

Read more: Hurricane Sandy Relief: Networks Attack GOP, But Mention Pork Only 1.5% of the Time | NewsBusters

 

[bendog]

dimocraps are some dishonest scum

ALL of them

The Sandy aid bill was loaded with pork and flexible spending that was not earmarked for Hurricane Sandy. Among the most egregious provisions compiled from both the liberal Huffington Post and the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal were:

$13 billion to mitigate against future disasters including $188 million for Amtrak

$12.1 billion for the Community Development Fund, flexible spending often used to fund liberal activists

$600 million for climate change research

$348 million for the National Park Service

$150 million for fisheries in Alaska and Mississippi

Even a liberal objected to this spending. According to Politicker, outspoken Mayor Michael Bloomberg criticized “extraneous” provisions in the Sandy relief bill in a radio program and said it was to blame for the House’s delay in voting on the bill.

Read more: Hurricane Sandy Relief: Networks Attack GOP, But Mention Pork Only 1.5% of the Time | NewsBusters

That is true, but Christie isn't a dem. And Staten Island is not a liberal bastion.

 

[Edgetho]

I'm sorry, but the earmark system is the root cause of one of the largest fundamental problems with how our government legislates.

Why in the fuck are we including all sorts of unrelated shit in a single law in the -first- place? Why would we want our legislators voting on anything -but- the crux of each issue? Why should people be voting up or down on a law that's going to effect 300 million people based on whether or not they get some extra building funds?

The acceptance of this bullshit method of "getting things done" is why we have laws that are 60,000 fucking pages long that nobody reads before they vote. We have government officials being asked about shit like that and saying, on television, that one can't realistically expect someone to take the insane amount of time it would require to read all these nonsensically large pieces of legislation before voting. Let that sink in. Lawmakers feel like it's not only justifiable, but OBVIOUSLY justifiable that they WOULDN'T READ LEGISLATION BEFORE DECIDING ON IT!

Part of the problem is that we've let our statist culture tell us that the value of our government can be determined by how much they "get done". Am I to believe that more legislation is automatically better legislation? We need to let them be a little corrupt and a little stupid about the laws they're passing so that they'll pass more of them? Where's the fucking logic in that?

WHY THE FUCK WOULD WE ACCEPT THIS!? Is it really worthwhile to let ignorance decide our fate for the benefit of having it decided more often and more rapidly? Is everybody -that- fucking stupid?

Sometimes, I wish I could resign my membership from this dumb fuck species.

So you're all for giving people BILLIONS of dollars with no direction on how it should be spent?

An 'earmark' says, "Look, here's 10 Billion Dollars but EVERY PENNY OF IT has to be spent on what the FUCK we're giving it to you for.

Earmarks are a blessing, not a curse.

"Pork" is not necessarily part of earmarks.

You give the Defense Department a TRILLION Dollars and they go out and spend it on hookers and golf, think you'd be a little pissed?

It's "EARMARKED" for things like, 10 Billion for an Aircraft, 100 Billion for a pay raise, 50 Billion for pensions....

Too many of you just don't understand the system

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

I'm sorry, but the earmark system is the root cause of one of the largest fundamental problems with how our government legislates.

Why in the fuck are we including all sorts of unrelated shit in a single law in the -first- place? Why would we want our legislators voting on anything -but- the crux of each issue? Why should people be voting up or down on a law that's going to effect 300 million people based on whether or not they get some extra building funds?

The acceptance of this bullshit method of "getting things done" is why we have laws that are 60,000 fucking pages long that nobody reads before they vote. We have government officials being asked about shit like that and saying, on television, that one can't realistically expect someone to take the insane amount of time it would require to read all these nonsensically large pieces of legislation before voting. Let that sink in. Lawmakers feel like it's not only justifiable, but OBVIOUSLY justifiable that they WOULDN'T READ LEGISLATION BEFORE DECIDING ON IT!

Part of the problem is that we've let our statist culture tell us that the value of our government can be determined by how much they "get done". Am I to believe that more legislation is automatically better legislation? We need to let them be a little corrupt and a little stupid about the laws they're passing so that they'll pass more of them? Where's the fucking logic in that?

WHY THE FUCK WOULD WE ACCEPT THIS!? Is it really worthwhile to let ignorance decide our fate for the benefit of having it decided more often and more rapidly? Is everybody -that- fucking stupid?

Sometimes, I wish I could resign my membership from this dumb fuck species.

So you're all for giving people BILLIONS of dollars with no direction on how it should be spent?

An 'earmark' says, "Look, here's 10 Billion Dollars but EVERY PENNY OF IT has to be spent on what the FUCK we're giving it to you for.

Earmarks are a blessing, not a curse.

"Pork" is not necessarily part of earmarks.

You give the Defense Department a TRILLION Dollars and they go out and spend it on hookers and golf, think you'd be a little pissed?

It's "EARMARKED" for things like, 10 Billion for an Aircraft, 100 Billion for a pay raise, 50 Billion for pensions....

Too many of you just don't understand the system

Try to realize I didn't say "earmarks" are the problem. I said "the earmark system" is the problem. If we redefine earmarks, legally, to mean "rigid specification of where the money for carrying out said legislation will be spent", and limit those earmarks to direct implementation of the crux of the issue, I'm all for them. In fact, that's how government spending -should- work.

That said, the current earmark system is used as much for "getting things done" as it is for directing spending. Our willingness to create omnibus bills that address 300 issues in one massive peace of legislation in order to "get things done" is the problem, and the way we work our earmarks is, to a large degree, responsible for lawmakers actually making arguments in favor of giant, unreadable bills. "We can't just do this piecemeal, we need comprehensive legislation." That sound familiar? It defies basic logic 10 times out of 10, yet its a common maxim on Capitol Hill. Why is that? Giant, comprehensive pieces of legislation imply cumbersome numbers of issues being addressed simultaneously, and time only allows for the media to cover the main ones. Essentially, the earmark system allows for the allocation of money to -anywhere-. This gives lawmakers the ability to earmark it for personal, pet projects. Where these personal, pet projects would contradict mainstream opinion, they save political face by hiding them. How do you hide them? Make the legislation so fucking huge that nobody can read it thoroughly enough to identify your bullshit spending devices. The way our earmark system is laid out is directly detrimental to the transparency of our legislative process.

Don't redefine my argument and then tell me I don't understand, please. It's insulting.

 

[bendog]

I'm sorry, but the earmark system is the root cause of one of the largest fundamental problems with how our government legislates.

Why in the fuck are we including all sorts of unrelated shit in a single law in the -first- place? Why would we want our legislators voting on anything -but- the crux of each issue? Why should people be voting up or down on a law that's going to effect 300 million people based on whether or not they get some extra building funds?

The acceptance of this bullshit method of "getting things done" is why we have laws that are 60,000 fucking pages long that nobody reads before they vote. We have government officials being asked about shit like that and saying, on television, that one can't realistically expect someone to take the insane amount of time it would require to read all these nonsensically large pieces of legislation before voting. Let that sink in. Lawmakers feel like it's not only justifiable, but OBVIOUSLY justifiable that they WOULDN'T READ LEGISLATION BEFORE DECIDING ON IT!

Part of the problem is that we've let our statist culture tell us that the value of our government can be determined by how much they "get done". Am I to believe that more legislation is automatically better legislation? We need to let them be a little corrupt and a little stupid about the laws they're passing so that they'll pass more of them? Where's the fucking logic in that?

WHY THE FUCK WOULD WE ACCEPT THIS!? Is it really worthwhile to let ignorance decide our fate for the benefit of having it decided more often and more rapidly? Is everybody -that- fucking stupid?

Sometimes, I wish I could resign my membership from this dumb fuck species.

So you're all for giving people BILLIONS of dollars with no direction on how it should be spent?

An 'earmark' says, "Look, here's 10 Billion Dollars but EVERY PENNY OF IT has to be spent on what the FUCK we're giving it to you for.

Earmarks are a blessing, not a curse.

"Pork" is not necessarily part of earmarks.

You give the Defense Department a TRILLION Dollars and they go out and spend it on hookers and golf, think you'd be a little pissed?

It's "EARMARKED" for things like, 10 Billion for an Aircraft, 100 Billion for a pay raise, 50 Billion for pensions....

Too many of you just don't understand the system

OK, here's an example. There was a bridge over the Miss River, south of Memphis (where there's a big roadway bridge) and north of Vicksburg (where there's also a big interstate bridge). The bridge was built in the 30s, and it's purpose was to let agricultural equipment to move back and forth. Unfortantely, the thing was a magnet for the huge river barges because when they build it, they didn't understand river currents, or the currents changed. Anyway, every year it'd shut down barge traffic, costing millions in losses.

You got maybe 12-20 senators with any interest in fixing it. And, it's gonna be expensive to remove a bridge from the Mississippi R and build a new one. But, over time, it'll pay for itself.

The answer: an earmark.

Now Coburn is saying you ought to be able to get 51, or 60, senators to pass that. But the fact is, it ain't that easy.

 

[RandomVariable]

"Earmarks" and pork aren't necessarily the same thing.

Let's say your wife gives you a $100 to spend at the grocery store and gives you a list with Milk, Coffee, Bread and other 'essentials' on it but tells you she wants a box of Oreos as well.

THAT is an earmark. You got your $100 and you can spend it on whatever you think best, after essentials, but if you forget the Box of Oreos, guess who's sleeping on the couch that night?

With me? It's a hundred bucks. You're not going to spend MORE than that, but included in the amount is her Oreos. Got it?

Now, if you go to the Store and spend the $100 on everything except what you need.... You go home with no Milk for the kids, no Coffee for Mama and no Dinner for anybody because you spent it at the Strip Joint, THAT is Pork because you STILL Need to spend "X" amount of dollars on groceries.

Not a real good explanation. Getting tired. But Pork is wasteful and usually a payoff to a constituency or constituents. Earmarks are just setting some already-approve money aside to be spent in a certain way.

Lousy explanation but I'm not in the mood to fix it.

It's the only thing you have ever said that I liked but for once, it is.

 

[RandomVariable]

Watching the House debate, especially in committee, a Republican with rail against spending for a certain program but slip in a little, 'but my case is an exception'. Earmarks might have gotten a really bad name for themselves, some of that justified, but it seems counterproductive to eliminate earmarks altogether. They serve a very valuable function.

I guess some projects may be legitimate, but how do you weed out the frivolous from the legitimate since they are rarely individually debated. They are most often passed out like Halloween candy for the good little boys and girls who vote in favor of a particular piece of legislation.

That's the beauty of modern technology. It is so much easier to follow where the dollars go now. It really changes the nature of the game.