$1 mill for mystery project

Anyone tired yet of the "culture of corruption" hypocrisy? Me too. From Politico:

What's a paltry one million dollars to a member of Congress?

Well, apparently not enough to know if an organization about to receive that big block of cash actually exists.

Republican Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona, the fiscal crusader who's never met an earmark he likes, questioned Democratic Rep. Peter J. Visclosky of Indiana on the House floor Tuesday about whether the Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure actually exists - since, hey, it's getting like a million bucks or something.

Visclosky, who chairs the spending subcommittee responsible for the project, had to admit that, well, he didn't have a clue.

After a lengthy back-and-forth, Flake, complaining that his staff couldn't find a website for the center, asked Visclosky, "Does the center currently exist?"

"At this time, I do not know," the Indiana Democrat replied. "But if it does not exist, the monies could not go to it."

As if that wasn't bad enough...

And who could possibly be the sponsor of such an earmark? Yes, you guessed it, the man Republicans love to hate, Pennsylvania Democrat John P. Murtha.

Despite the money's uncertain destination, the House rejected Flake's measure to strike the funds, 326-98. And the Visclosky bill also sailed through, 312-112.

As I said, what's one million dollars to a member of Congress?

UPDATE: I failed to report last night that a certificate filed with the requested funds says the money is actually earmarked to Concurrent Technologies Corporation, a nonprofit technological consulting firm. A brief search of campaign finance records shows CTC President and CEO Daniel R. DeVos, of alternately Central City and Johnstown, Pa. has contributed $7,000 to Murtha's reelection campaign since April 2002.

Abscam Jack, still crazy after all these years. Quite a deal for Abscam Jack and DeVos, wouldn't you say? DeVos gives Jack $7k for his re-election campaign, and gets a nice cool million (not a dime of which is out of Abscam Jack's pocket) as a return on his investment. I guess it's a good thing we've got those principled, uncorrupted Dems running the show now, huh?

"Bridge to Nowhere" dude typifies DC thinking: Tax money is HIS money!

From Politico:

Rep. Don Young attacked his fellow Republicans on the House floor Wednesday, as he defended education funds allocated to his home-state of Alaska.

"You want my money, my money," Young stridently declared before warning conservatives that, "Those who bite me will be bitten back."

Young took extreme exception to an amendment by Rep. Scott Garrett (R-N.J.) to strike money in a spending bill for native Alaskan and Hawaiian educational programs.
...
And lest we forget, Young, who used to chair the House Transportation Committee, is responsible for the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere," a proposed span connecting Ketchikan, Alaska, with the tiny island of Gravina that would have cost $315 million – and eventually came to symbolize profligate spending under Republican rule.

Oh, and he has spent more than $250,000 on legal fees so far this year at the same time that federal investigators probe some of his campaign's biggest contributors.

Garrett refrained from asking for an official reprimand, but he and other conservative Republicans took after Young's declaration that the funds in question represented his money. The assembled conservatives then launched into a general attack on earmarked spending.

"We legally steal," argued Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), defending her colleague from New Jersey. (Finally, some refreshing honesty from DC! - Ed.)

Members of the conservative Republican Study Committee gave Garrett a standing ovation later in the day during the group's weekly meeting, an aide to one conservative member said.

Get it through your head, dipsh#t: my money from Florida sure as hell does NOT belong to you in Alaska! Tax money is the people's money, you corrupt self-serving piece of caribou crap, and don't you ever freakin' forget it!

CNN exposes porker Congressmen

I hate to do this, but I must give CNN props for doing this to the "most ethical Congress in history" (via Newsbusters):

ANDERSON COOPER: Drew, it's just amazing that nothing has changed. What happened to all those promises about transparency, about having this whole process be open? I can't believe you had all those interns calling for days and some 330 lawmakers said they just wouldn't even give out the information.

GRIFFIN: Anderson it's mind-boggling. One congressional aide even sent us an e-mail saying, listen, my congressman is an advocate of the open process and at the same time said we're not going to release our earmark requests.

It's just been an eye-opening experience, but quite frankly the more we're doing this, the more we're keeping them honest and other groups are, the more open they are grudgingly becoming so tonight we have posted at cnn.com the results of our surveys. We're going to show you who did send us the earmarks and their earmark requests, who said no, who wouldn't respond and even, Anderson, who was rude to those poor little interns when they called asking what Congress wants to do with our money.

COOPER: The fact that people would be rude, that is really annoying, you know. This is -- this is, A, what journalists are supposed to be doing but it's also what citizens should be able to do, you know, to the people who represent them.

GRIFFIN: Clearly it's annoying to them. They don't like to be called on the carpet, especially, I mean, I hate to get political here, but have you to. The Democrats promised in December open, transparent process. Now they are being called to come up with that open, transparent process and it's been difficult because for so many years and decades, quite frankly, business as usual has been slipped in those earmark requests and we'll continue to pay for them.

I'm sure CNN will do something to tick me off in the next day or two, but I have to give credit where it is due.

House halted on squabble over pork

From the San Franistan fishwrap:

For the second straight day, minority House Republicans ground the House to a standstill Wednesday as they drove home their objections to a Democratic plan to deny a floor vote on lawmakers' thousands of pet projects.

Public anger over the surging number of special member projects called earmarks -- derided as pork barrel spending -- was a factor in the Republicans' loss of House control last November, GOP members concede, and now they say they've gotten religion on the need for openness in government.

Charges of hypocrisy flew in floor speeches as House leaders huddled behind closed doors to seek a way out of a dispute that Republicans said showed Democrats led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi had backed down on promises of openness and disclosure made when they took power last January.

Democrats had hoped this week to pass four of the 12 annual bills that pay for federal operations beginning Oct. 1. Instead, Republicans have offered 116 amendments to a $37.4 billion Homeland Security spending bill -- the first of the bills on the floor -- in a bid to stall it. And on Tuesday they offered repeated motions to adjourn the House, each requiring a vote, keeping a wary House in session until 2:10 a.m. Wednesday.

Democrats argued Republicans were engaging in partisan attacks to try to embarrass Pelosi (yeah, like THAT would be tough to do! - Ed.). They charged the GOP lawmakers lacked credibility on earmarks, the number of which exploded during their 12 years of House rule.

The GOP does indeed lack credibility when it comes to earmarks. However...

"The new majority ran on a policy of openness, honesty and candor, and I suggest this is a policy that hardly promotes openness, honesty or candor," said Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga.

When Democrats took over the House last January, they passed rules saying that members behind all earmarks had to be identified, and that earmarks on all spending bills would be identified "before members are asked to vote on them," as Rules Committee Chairwoman Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., told the House.

Taxpayers for Common Sense, an outside watchdog group, said earmarks must be disclosed early in the process.

"Taxpayers have the fundamental right to know about all earmarks. Both congressional and administration projects should be disclosed in legislation before the full House casts a single vote," the group's president, Ryan Alexander, said in a statement.

Congressman "Prostitution Ring" decided to chime in:

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., heaped scorn on the Republicans. "What's funny is that many of the Republicans who are fighting for the right to vote against earmarks ... never met an earmark they didn't like," he said.

Correct, Ms. Franks, your Republican counterparts were fond of earmarks when they held the purse strings. However, you guys vowed to restore fiscal responsibility to Washington, right? Then you passed rules in the House that basically demand openness when it comes to pork projects, and now that you've been exposed as hypocrites, your only defense is "Yeah, well, the Republicans are hypocrites, too"? As if that makes your behavior somehow more palatable?

Dems sidestep their own rules for pork

Ya gotta love the gall hypocrisy chutzpah of the Dems! They ran on cleaning up the GOP's financial mess, especially pork. They make new rules about pork once they were sworn in. And now, they're going to ignore those very rules. From USA Today:

Democrats are sidestepping rules approved their first day in power in January to clearly identify “earmarks” — lawmakers’ requests for specific projects and contracts for their states — in documents that accompany spending bills.

Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., says those requests for dams, community grants and research contracts for favored universities or hospitals will be added spending measures in the fall. That is when House and Senate negotiators assemble final bills to send to President Bush.
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Budget watchdog groups who “scrub” appropriations bills for questionable provisions are outraged.

“Who appointed him judge and jury of earmarks?” Tom Schatz, president of the Citizens Against Government Waste. “What that does is leave out the public’s input.”

What Obey is doing runs counter to new rules that Democrats promised would make such spending decisions more open. Those rules made it clear that projects earmarked for federal dollars and their sponsors were to be made available to public scrutiny when appropriations bills are debated.

"Bush mocks pork in war funding"

Better late than never? From the Washington Times:

President Bush yesterday ridiculed House and Senate lawmakers for pork-laden Iraq war funding bills that set 2008 deadlines for full U.S. troop withdrawal from Iraq, vowing to veto what he called "arbitrary" limits on U.S. military commanders.

Addressing a group of raucous ranchers at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association in Washington, the president drew laughter and applause as he lampooned the competing bills now working their ways through Congress.

On the Senate bill, Mr. Bush noted that "there's $3.5 million for visitors to tour the Capitol and see for themselves how Congress works." To loud laughter from the cattlemen, he added: "I'm not kidding you."

"The bill includes $74 million for peanut storage, $25 million for spinach growers," he said to laughter. "There's $6.4 million for the House of Representatives' salaries and expense accounts. I don't know what that is, but it is not related to the war and protecting the United States of America," he said to more laughter and applause.

The president urged lawmakers to deliver a bill he can sign.

"Here's the bottom line: The House and Senate bills have too much pork, too many conditions on our commanders, and an artificial timetable for withdrawal," Mr. Bush said. "And I have made it clear for weeks, if either version comes to my desk, I'm going to veto it.

Hey, whaddaya know! The man might dust off his veto pen for the second! Had he known where that pen was over the last five or so years when his party was porkin' it up, he might have spared his party the bloodbath of last November (well, partially spared them, anyway). Continuing:

"It is also clear from the strong opposition in both houses that my veto would be sustained. Yet Congress continues to pursue these bills, and as they do, the clock is ticking for our troops in the field," he said.

Democrats, however, accused the president of stubbornly sticking with a failed Iraq policy and demanded that Mr. Bush listen to the American people.

"Now that congressional Democrats have voted to give the troops the resources they need in combat, including a strategy to change course and get them out of a civil war, it's up to the president to drop his stubborn veto threat so there is no delay in funding for our troops," said Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee. "He should also stop ignoring the will of the American people, put partisanship aside and work with Congress to fix his failed policies in Iraq."

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada agreed.

"Why doesn't he get real with what's going on with the world?" he said after Mr. Bush's speech. "We're not holding up funding in Iraq, and he knows that. Why doesn't he deal with the real issues facing the American people?"

How disingenuous (yet typical) of the left! If Reid and his leftard ilk can explain how peanut and spinach subsidies (and other pork projects) have squat to do with war funding, I'd love to hear it.

Money talks in D.C.

Democrats said last year that if they were elected, they'd clean up the financial mess that Republicans had left them. They started off by eliminating a lot of earmarks, and for that, I commended them. However, how long did you think it would really take before they started tacking on some of their own pork (you know, the stuff they vowed to eliminate once in power)? From Bloomberg:

President George W. Bush's first spending fight with the Democratic-controlled Congress may come over the Iraq war -- and avocados and cattle and flood protection.

Lawmakers are pushing to add billions of dollars to the administration's war-funding request to meet a host of unrelated demands, including those from California fruit farmers hit by freezing temperatures, ranchers whose livestock were killed in Colorado blizzards and children poised to lose their health insurance.

The potential add-ons threaten a battle in the coming weeks with the White House. Bush has never vetoed a spending measure, and Democrats, betting he won't veto one paying for the war, see a way to aid a number of constituencies seeking federal aid.

"There are urgent, emergency situations that have to be addressed," said Senator Kent Conrad, a North Dakota Democrat.

Of course it's an emergency! Just how in the hell is this country supposed to operate without adequate supplies of guacamole? It only makes sense to attach such a nationally pressing matter like that witha supplemental defense spending bill, right? Continuing:

Senator Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, said the extra spending is "fiscally irresponsible and it's blatantly unseemly." (As opposed to when YOU GUYS ran the show, Senator? - Ed.)

"We're supposed to be fighting this war and paying for the troops -- making sure they have what they need," he said. "We're not supposed to be paying for avocado growers."

Democrats voted last month to drop thousands of pet projects, called "earmarks" or "pork," from a $463 billion annual spending measure. Gregg said the calls for adding to the Iraq measure, which have come from Republicans and Democrats alike, looked like pork to him.

Just to show I'm not partial to one party of porkers over another, here's a link to a column by Bob Novak showing how Sen. John Thune (R-SD) has lost his "fiscal conservative" way. Excerpt:

THE FEDERAL Railroad Administration handed a rare victory to the American taxpayer last week by denying a questionable $2.33 billion loan application by the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern (DM&E) Railroad. What makes this news of special interest is the paramount role Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota played in boosting the loan. Here is a cautionary tale of political life in Washington and how it corrupts.

Legislative changes that made the loan possible were guided through Congress behind closed doors by Thune. But the assessment that DM&E is a poor credit risk was shared by Thune's fellow conservative senators -- Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Jim DeMint of South Carolina -- who took the extraordinary step of advocating rejection of a colleague's pet project. Making matters worse, Thune is a former paid lobbyist for the South Dakota-based railroad and has received political contributions from the company's executives.

Thune entered the Senate in 2005 as one of the GOP's rising stars with a limitless future after defeating Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle for re-election. He declared himself eager to fight against spending under a Republican-controlled government. But instead of aligning himself with his party's reformers, Thune has been energized in promoting pork for South Dakota. After the embarrassment of the DM&E loan rejection, a Senate Republican source (who declined to be identified) said: "One can hope this episode helps Thune recover his revolutionary zeal.