Obama Wants His Share Of The Pork

[red states rule]

Sen Obama has come out for higher taxes, and now we know why. He need the money to apy for his own pork projects


Obama Budget Requests $300 Million in 'Pork'

Democrat Barack Obama on Thursday revealed the 113 budget items he has requested in the Senate - known as "pet projects" or "pork" in the language of budget reform - and challenged his fellow presidential candidates to do the same.

Obama's more than $300 million in earmark requests range from $33 million made along with other senators for a nationwide project to promote civics among students to $125,000 to add turn lanes and traffic lights at an intersection in rural Oregon, Ill.

"As a matter of transparency and good government, Obama thinks it's important that voters know who their candidates are, what their sources of income are and whether they have any potential conflicts," Obama spokesman Bill Burton said. "We would hope that other candidates follow suit in disclosing their earmarks as well."

Obama is the first presidential candidate to release his earmark requests. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., is the only candidate besides Obama to release tax returns.

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2007/6/21/121810.shtml?s=us

 

[red states rule]

House panel approves $153 million in pet projects, mostly for Dems
Associated Press
Jun. 21, 2007 11:24 AM

WASHINGTON - The House Appropriations Committee on Thursday approved $153 million in pet projects, rewarding both powerful and not-so-powerful lawmakers alike with 377 cherished "earmarks" for their home districts.

The unusual session was made necessary after Republicans forced Democrats to reverse plans to insert pet projects into bills before House debates rather than add them in closed-door House-Senate talks when it would be too late to challenge them.

Of more pressing importance to lawmakers, however, is that Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., have issued an edict cutting the amount of money devoted to earmarks in half. Obey denied all earmarks when passing a wrap-up spending bill earlier this year.

"Many members will be disappointed," said Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., chairman of a panel responsible for local clean water and sewer grants and national parks projects.

Republicans are especially feeling the pinch. Now that they're in the minority, they only get about 40 percent of the money for projects rather than the 60 percent they enjoyed when controlling Congress. The fact that earmarks are being cut in half doubles the pinch.

Seven-term GOP Rep. Zack Wamp's requests for Environmental Protection Agency water and sewer grants were not granted, though Democrats heeded calls for freshmen lawmakers facing potentially difficult re-election campaigns.

For example, Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., obtained $500,000 for South Bend's sewer systems and homestate colleague Brad Ellsworth won an equal amount for Evansville. Jason Altmire and Christopher Carney, freshman Democrats from Pennsylvania, also won projects.

for the complete article

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0621congress-earmarks0621-ON.html

 

[William Joyce]

It seems no politician, Democrat or Republican, is immune from this. The problem is that each district's people are happy and excited to get these pork projects. I rarely hear of anyone saying, "You know, that highway out back is just pork project, and I'm not happy with my Congressman for supporting it."

To them, it's a highway. To the rest of us, it's pork.

I think the federal government's practice of spending money however it pleases should come to an end. James Madison warned us about this.

 

[red states rule]

The headlines today read... "Democrats Seek Votes on Iraq Pullout"
And, how does the defeatist party plan on getting votes?
By having a hog roast, of course!

Here is a partial list of the smoked bacon on the Iraqi supplemental bill listed at the Club for Growth website:

Aquaculture Operations: Provides $5 million for payments to "aquaculture operations and other persons in the U.S. engaged in the business of breeding, rearing, or transporting live fish" (such as shellfish, oysters and clams) to cover economic losses incurred as a result of an emergency order issued by the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service on October 24, 2006.

Spinach: Provides $25 million for payments to spinach producers that were unable to market spinach crops as a result of the FDA Public Health Advisory issued on September 14, 2006.

Hurricane Citrus Program: Provides $100 million to provide assistance to citrus producers (such as orange producers) in the area declared a disaster related to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

NASA: Provides $35 million to NASA, under the "exploration capabilities" account, for "expenses related to the consequences of Hurricane Katrina."

HUD Indian Housing: Provides $80 million in tenant-based rental assistance for public and Indian housing under HUD. Crop Disaster Assistance: Provides roughly $3 billion in agriculture assistance to crop producers and livestock owners experiencing losses in 2005, 2006, or 2007 due to bad weather.

Shrimp: Provides $120 million to the shrimp industry for expenses related to the consequences of Hurricane Katrina.

Frozen Farmland: Provides $20 million for the cleanup and restoration of farmland damaged by freezing temperatures during a time period beginning on January 1, 2007 through the date of enactment.

Milk Income Loss Contract (MILC) Program: Provides $283 million for payments under the MILC program, to extend the life of the program for one year, through September 30, 2008. MILC provides payments to dairy farmers when milk prices fall below a certain rate.

Peanut Storage Subsidies: Provides $74 million to extend peanut storage payments through 2007. The Peanut Subsidy Storage program, which is set to expire this year, pays farmers for the storage, handling, and other costs for peanuts voluntarily placed in the marketing loan program.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA): Provides $60.4 million for fishing communities, Indian tribes, individuals, small businesses, including fishermen, fish processors, and related businesses for assistance related to "the commercial fishery failure." According to the Committee Report, this funding is to be used to provide disaster relief for those along the California and Oregon coast affected by the "2006 salmon fishery disaster in the Klamath River."

Avian Flu: Provides $969 million for the Department of HHS to continue to prepare and respond to an avian flu pandemic. Of this funding, $870 million is to be used for the development of vaccines.

Secure Rural Schools Act (Forest County Payments): Provides $400 million to be used for one-time payments to be allocated to states under the Secure Rural Schools and Community Self-Determination Act of 2000. This program provides a funding stream (known as forest county payments) to counties with large amounts of Bureau of Land Management land, in order to compensate for the loss of receipt-sharing payments on this land caused by decreased revenue from timber sales due to environmental protections for endangered species. The authorization for these forest county payments expired at the end of FY 2006, and counties received their last payment under the Act in December 2006.

LIHEAP: Provides $400 million for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).

Vaccine Compensation: Provides $50 million to compensate individuals for injuries caused by the H5N1 vaccine, which is a flu vaccine. Payment to Widow of Rep. Norwood: Provides $165,200 to Gloria W. Norwood, the widow of former Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA), an RSC Member, who passed away last month. In the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2005 (H.R. 1268), Congress provided $162,100 to Doris Matsui, the widow of former Rep. Robert Matsui.

Capitol Power Plant: Provides $50 million to the Capitol Power Plant for asbestos abatement and safety improvements. Liberia: Provides that money appropriated for FY 2007 for the Bilateral Economic Assistance program at the Department of Treasury may be used to assist Liberia in retiring its debt arrearages to the International Monetary Fund, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the African Development Bank.

SCHIP: Provides $750 million to the Secretary of HHS to provide assistance to the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) "shortfall states,", in the form of an amount "as the Secretary determines will eliminate the estimated shortfall." This provision is direct spending that is essentially capped at $750 million and designated as an emergency to avoid PAYGO constraints.

Tax Increases and Shifts: Implements several tax increases and shifts, including: denying the lowest maximum capital gains tax rate for certain minors and adults, extending the suspension of interest payments due to the IRS, and adjusting the deadlines for corporate estimated tax payments. Costs taxpayers $1.380 billion over the FY2007-FY2017 period.



http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/03/feeling-hog-tied-for-cut-votes.html

 

[Edward]

It seems no politician, Democrat or Republican, is immune from this. The problem is that each district's people are happy and excited to get these pork projects. I rarely hear of anyone saying, "You know, that highway out back is just pork project, and I'm not happy with my Congressman for supporting it."

To them, it's a highway. To the rest of us, it's pork.

I think the federal government's practice of spending money however it pleases should come to an end. James Madison warned us about this.

The problem with your reasoning is the assumption that pork as you call it is any different than the President requesting money be spent on certain areas and Congress appropriating money for his pet projects. What you do not want to mention is that the legislature is the ones who determines the budget and not the executive and therefore it is only reasonable that the budget and appropriations would include items from individual Senators and Representatives as they create the budget. To do otherwise would be to fail to represent the people who elected them.

I think you would better have said, "I think the federal government's practice of spending money in ways that don't please me should come to an end and all the spending I agree with should continue." All of your talk about James Madison to the contrary, he is just another man like you and for that matter he was a motherfucker who should have had his ass kicked by the people and we would be much better off. If you want to quote the moron James go right ahead and I will quote those who lived then who disagreed with his retarded ass. I don't think his opinion is worth more than yours so I suggest you stop wasting time quoting an idiot who agrees with you simply because you think his opinion carries more weight because THE PEOPLE cannot confront him and prove him to be the idiot that he is instead we simply have to confront those of you who live today who agree with the retard.

If you want to quote the bastard James Madison I will quote Jefferson when he said, "Some men look upon constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the ark of the covenant too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. I knew that age well; I belonged to it and labored with it. It deserved well of its country. It was very like the present but without the experience of the present; and forty years experience in government is worth a century of book reading; and this they would say themselves were they to rise from the dead."

Thomas Jefferson is but one man but he was three times the man that the asshole James Madison was. It is idiots like you who think that the opinion of James Madison carries any weight with those of us who see his shit for what it is which is the same color as your shit. As if anyone here is somehow going to accept your opinion simply because James Fucking Madison agrees with it. All that proves to us is that James Madison is as retarded as you are. I agree with Jefferson that some people like to ascribe to men of the past a wisdom that is more than human but that isn't how it is. Simply because they lived in the past and cannot be forced to debate THE PEOPLE today does not mean that their opinion is any more valid. I do not intend to debate the words of a dead man who I have never met and who I cannot meet and who cannot be forced to reason with me. For all I know he was fucking his gay boyfriend Georgie Washington when he decided to say that.

The reason you need to resort to using James Madison opinion as some kind of evidence for yours is clear because your opinion is retarded and you jump up and down in joy to think that someone who you respect and admire (and who I think should be spit upon) agrees with you. Provide some real fucking reasons for why you and the jackass Madison's opinion is correct on this and if you love the motherfucker so much you can change your name to James Madison, travel into the past so the intelligent people of that time can say to you what they said to him then.

The reason that the people of a district are happy when their legislator seeks to have local and state projects included in the federal budget by submitting a request for appropriations is because that is what they were elected to do. The whole idea that a fucker like you can decide what the government can and cannot spend our money on is fucking laughable. The question isn't the right of legislators to do this as that is their constitutional right. It offends you and those who think to use the constitution for your own purposes but who get upset when others do it that these legislators have the right to request these appropriations. After all doesn't the Constitution say: WHAT YOU WANT IT TO SAY....

 

[red states rule]

There is still enough pork to cause concern for taxpayers, as 2,658 projects were stuffed into the Defense and Homeland Security Appropriations Acts, at a cost of $13.2 billion. Pork identified in the Pig Book since 1991 totals $252 billion. Defense had 2,618 projects, or 204 less than in 2006, at a cost of $10.8 billion, or 28 percent less than the $14.9 billion in 2006. For homeland security, the totals were $2.4 billion, or 10 percent less than the $2.7 billion in 2006, and 40 projects, or five more than in 2006.

While only two bills were enacted, the states of Alaska and Hawaii, which have been the top two states in pork per capita every year but one since 2000, were served more then their fair share of bacon by Senators Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii). In the defense appropriations bill alone, Alaska received $209,900,000, a 127 percent increase over the total of $92,425,000 in 2006.


Based on historical figures, the enactment of H. J. Res. 20 eliminated more than 7,000 earmarks and saved between $12-$15 billion in pork-barrel spending. Unfortunately, in this Year of the Pig, taxpayers are not getting a pork dividend. Instead, Congress took the savings and spent it on other programs.


Despite the moratorium on earmarks, the siren’s song of pork is too tempting for some members of Congress, who have called federal agencies to pressure them to divert money to pet projects that were included in committee reports. The Bush Administration told agencies to ignore such oral communications.


While taxpayers should celebrate a reduction in the number and cost of pork-barrel projects, there is still much work that needs to be done to ensure that members of Congress do not return to their piggish ways in the future.


The 24 projects, totaling $2.4 billion, in this year’s Congressional Pig Book Summary symbolize the most egregious and blatant examples of pork.


To see the pork projects:
http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=reports_pigbook2007