Friday, March 29, 2024

House Republicans Vote Overwhelmingly to Abandon Any Pretense of Fiscal Responsibility

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has a longstanding, bipartisan addiction to spending. The federal debt and annual deficits are prime examples of how deep the problem is.

But another, more insidious version that Republicans, at least, had sworn off was , those gateway drugs tucked inside spending bills that helped a favored few at the expense of everyone else.

At its recent meeting to set policies and rules for their new House majority, Republicans overwhelmingly voted to embrace earmarks. As The Wall Street Journal's Kim Strassel writes, it was yet more proof that Republicans are no more serious about spending control than Democrats. But it's the hypocrisy that makes them worse:

The vote came despite a vigorous campaign by independent conservative groups. “Earmarks are one of the most corrupt, inequitable, and wasteful practices in the history of Congress,” read a letter signed by representatives of 15 groups, including Heritage Action, Club for Growth, FreedomWorks, Americans for Tax Reform and Citizens Against Waste. The groups told lawmakers it was “your first opportunity to demonstrate to taxpayers that the election of a Republican majority in the House will be accompanied by a serious effort to restore and maintain fiscal responsibility.” So much for that.

The reason earmarks are so dear to politicians? It's free money as far as individual members are concerned. The tax dollars they are able to steer back home make them look like they are “delivering” for the voters. Strassel notes the logic behind earmarks – or the more common term “” – is that members have a constitutional duty to spend money. Leaving spending decisions to the president and bureaucracy is an abdication of their constitutional duty.

Strassel says this is “hilarious, considering that the GOP continues to cede all spending decisions to the administration outside the isolated pork members siphon back home.”

The payoff for pork though can be mighty tasty. It's also easy and fun, unlike oversight, which requires a lot of work and:

…isn't nearly as much fun as grandstanding as a constitutionalist while bagging $1 million for the St. Louis Symphony (Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt) or $650,000 for feral swine management (Arkansas Sen. John Boozman) or $4.2 million for a sheep experiment station (Idaho Rep. Mike Simpson).

Remember that the next time a Republican begins railing against government waste. Chances are, those paladins of fiscal responsibility are among the biggest pork barrel spenders on .

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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Norman Leahy
Norman Leahy
Norman Leahy has written about national and Virginia politics for more than 30 years with outlets ranging from The Washington Post to BearingDrift.com. A consulting writer, editor, recovering think tank executive and campaign operative, Norman lives in Virginia.

21 COMMENTS

  1. face it. we have too much money, so we need our politicians to spend and or, give it away. Seriously, why do we need them at all ? We need the courts, and a rope manufacturer.for public hangings of killers. why couldn`t we elect some to be judges ? Those caught cheating could be banished to a deserted island for a year, to fend for themselves.Survivors could be reinstated to society. (polite society}. Are there enough deserted islands to handle a politician on each one, all by his/her self ? Could be an issue w/logistics.

  2. CONgress, the exact opposite of PROgress.
    Both parties will spend us into oblivion, it’s just a matter of what pet projects they believe will get them the most votes.

  3. If your relying on the Republican party to help this country, you are seriously mistaken. They ( other than the good new blood) are totally useless. If you can’t see this then you are blind. They have been like this for decades.

    • I don’t know Ron, but don’t you think this article sounds a bit fishy to you? It does to me and I am at the point that I will not believe anything I read on line until I seed it for myself. Hard cast in stone or spoken directly out loud to me before I believe anything. That is a result of the 2020 election and all the censorship going on.

    • Ron I get your point. However, you missed the elephant in the room! Kim Strassel! If the democrats did this exact thing the love would flow like wine at a wedding!

  4. Sooner than later the US petro dollar will cease to be the world’s reserve currency as China effortlessly takes over as the world leader. We will be racked by internal fighting, food and energy shortages as the people turn on each other. We are all guilty in our complacency for allowing this to happen.

  5. It’s really a shame to spend 30 years doing something and find out your not very good at it, At some point when you realize your clueless you should move on to something different.!!

  6. “No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.”

    HOW MUCH IS IT GOING TO TAKE to rip the blinders from America’s patriots and Christians that they might awaken to the fact that the 18th-century founders’ Grand Experiment in Self-Government has been nothing but a Grand Failure, destined to be so from its inception.

    Self-Government!?!

    What could go wrong? Everything! Just open your eyes and look around you!

    And, please, don’t respond by declaring it’s not the Constitution’s fault but rather today’s renegade presidents, legislators, and judges. Just how do you suppose America’s ended up with such civil “leaders,” in the first place? Could it have something to do with Article 6’s Christian test ban by which mandatory biblical qualifications (such as Exodus 18:21) for civil leaders were also eliminated?

    That’s right, if not for Article 6’s Christian test ban no one would have ever heard of Biden, Harris, Pelosi, AOC, the Clintons, or any of their fellow Swamp Crocodiles, disguised as both Donkeys and Elephants.

    For evidence the Constitution is the genesis of everything gone wrong in America, see free online book “Bible Law vs. the United States Constitution: The Christian Perspective,” in which every Article and Amendment is examined by the Bible, at Bible versus Constitution dot org. Click on the top entry on our Online Book page.

    For more regarding Article 6’s Christian test ban, see Chapter 9 “Article 6: The Supreme Law of the Land.”

    Find out how much you really know about the Constitution as compared to the Bible. Take our 10-question Constitution Survey in the sidebar and receive a free copy of the 85-page “Primer” of “BL vs. USC.”

  7. Earmarks? This, and a whole host of other atrocities against we, the people, that will be addressed by COS – a Convention Of States.

  8. Arguably the fault lies with the voters. They BELIEVE they get something for nothing. 

    Just about EVERY SINGLE LEGISLATOR — local, state and national — brags about how they “bring home the bacon” to their district. It’s often the MAIN point they make when stumping for their reelection.

    Voters don’t realize that to get their district “bacon,” legislators do “log rolling” — “I’ll vote for YOUR bacon if you’ll vote for mine.” 

    Sadly, the widespread voter ignorance is the fault of the MSM and our education institutions. Both laud legislators that “get things done.” That’s usually a euphemism for bringing home the bacon.

    Few legislators can get reelected by bragging about how LITTLE bacon they brought home to their district. Sooo, in essence, we get what we pay for. Or, in this instance, what we VOTE for.

    BTW, the best way to get rid of this terrible method of allocating taxpayer funds is to elect candidates without districts. Vote for parties, not candidates. Vote for their policies, not their ability to cut “bacon” deals.

    For instance, if the Green or Libertarian parties get 10% of all the votes, they get 10% of the representatives. The reps are picked by the parties (normally about 6 parties result in such a “parliamentary” system — parties get representation only if they garner at least 5% of the total vote), not by people voting for district bacon.

    Not gonna happen, but just thought I’d mention it.

  9. If these Republicans aren’t conservatives (RINOs instead), they don’t have to be returned to office in two years. Primaries are the opportunity for conservatives to see that candidates will represent us, if elected.

    • But for some reason that info isn’t get to the voters. We are in a mess. The media is in cahoots with the pols and voters don’t really pay attention to what is going on as they have the snoots stuck in the “smart” phones and aren’t keeping up with what Congress is doing but more with watching American Idol or some other nonsense.

  10. We need to take back our country from these two parties and have a new peoples party for the people and By the real people who love our great country

  11. This is why both parties hate Trump, he was pointing out how all politicians and government were wasting taxpayer money and putting us further in debt. So, with the help of msm both parties made Trump the enemy and the public lapped it up like good little robots. IMO

    • We all agree but the pols are never going to make that into law as they want to stay in office forever as the money is too good. Now if they got zero salary or just enough to cover their bare necessities while serving in DC for 3 months (they don’t need to be here all year long)and zero freebies, they would be gone after one term or two at the most. Please we would be getting people with some integrity.

      But back to getting Term Limits…..We can term limit Congress without going through Washington, D.C. We can tell Pelosi and McConnell to take a hike, because the Constitution has a solution. Under Article V of the Constitution, state legislatures may create a convention to enact a constitutional amendment and nobody in Washington can stop them. It takes getting 34 state legislatures – those politicians you elect to serve you at your state capitol – to pass resolutions calling for a Term Limits Convention. The legislatures of Florida, Alabama, Missouri and West Virginia have already passed the resolution. Let’s keep going.

  12. People are seeing that the GOP and the DNC are really one and the same these days. We, the citizens, are concerned about our open borders and who is coming into the US that could be dangerous. We are worried about the pork barrel things the Congress people are doing to just keep themselves in office and the enormous deficit the US is running.

    That is why when Donald Trump mentioned securing the border etc he got so much support and still has it. The Congress people know this but just want to line their pockets with taxpayer dollars as they all retire as millionaires/billionaires. They care about themselves and their bank accounts and not the country nor the citizens.

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