Ron Paul Defends Earmarks
by Big Dog on Dec 24, 2007 at 00:04 Political
Ron Paul was on Meet the Press and he had to defend himself against accusations that he put earmarks (pork to the rest of us) in bills while in Congress. Paul claimed that he never voted for an earmark and that he only put them in the bills because some of his constituents were asking for some of their money back. He said that he does not like the tax system but that does not stop him from claiming the deductions to which he is entitled because he wants his money back, just as his constituents do.
I am no fan of earmarks and I think the whole process should be done away with. No one from Congress should be allowed to add anything to a bill. Our tax money should not be getting thrown around to build bridges that help 200 people, build planetariums, or fund secret and usually non existent companies (Jack Murtha). No bill (especially a spending bill) should ever be introduced unless the Article and Section of the Constitution that authorizes it is cited. I find it odd that Paul would insert them and then vote against them.
If he wants his constituents to have their money back then why would he vote against the earmark? If he intended to vote against it then why add it in the first place. I’m sorry but this sounds a bit fishy to me. Paul is supposed to be the guy who keeps watch on such things so it is disheartening to find out he is involved in the process. Maybe his views are not as absolute as he would have us believe.
Paul is a long shot to win so maybe after he loses he can go back to Congress and keep introducing bills that take away the earmark process. Until all earmarks are gone I don’t want to hear Democrats or anyone else tell me that we are in debt because of George Bush or the Republicans. We are in debt because all of them have no control and they spend our money with little regard to the huge debt they are causing.
Earmarks must go before we ever discuss ending a war or how much war costs. Evidently, we are doing well if they can throw money around.
Ron Paul needs to get this fixed.
Source:
My Way News
Tags: earmarks, fiscal responsibility, meet the press, ron paul
If you listen to what Ron is saying, you walk away with a different perspective. He said he’s using Earmarks to fight the corruption of the system. Earmarks do not increase public-works spending, which he votes against. But they do allocate it—away from the executive dictatorship, and to the legislature, which is constitutional.
BD,
I know Ted Poe-R/TX at least the last time I looked doesn’t use pork. I agree and in every thing I send I make sure that I state that earmarks, pork to us be done away with. I call it black mail money. Just to get them to do the jobs they were elected to do. I just got an email from my D/ senator explaining or trying to why they are necessary. Sorry, Sparky you just lost my vote. Not that I voted for him anyway.
I really don’t think finding out why mice in WS are having a problem with mold a worth while project. They had over 8000 earmarks on this last bill just to get our guys 50 or 70 million for support. They are beyond disgusting. Oh, yes he told me not to be so judgemential of the 110 congress. That they had done many good things. I’m still waiting for just what that was.
When did Congress start voting specifically on Earmarks?
Also, RP’s reople get their tax money back in Gov’t services.
Rupaul is a ‘constitutionalist’ and as such he can’t vote on earmark’d bills (and he says so quite a lot). He has to keep up the appearance of being the only man in Congress to fight them.
Of course, he puts earmarks into bills himself just like all the other Congressmen and then proceeds to vote against them (even though he knows the bill will pass, thus granting him his pork).
He does this to stay ‘honest’ in the clinton-type is is kind of way. He can continue to tell his supporters that he is different while raking in the same pork as a Murtha or Stevenson would.
Click on my name to read Dr. Paul’s analysis from last June about the successful Republican-led effort to make earmarks more transparent. From this article I learned that adding an earmark simply reduces the amount of money available to spend by the federal bureaucrats being funded in a given bill. It does not change the overall spending amount authorized by a given bill. If the funding is going to a bureaucracy that is intent on destroying our civil liberties, for example, then paradoxically every earmark is a good thing in comparison to how the money would have been spent!
So, Ron Paul is going to vote No on a spending bill. The Bill is going to overwhelmingly pass. To make sure that the money doesn’t get passed on to the executive branch Dr. Paul includes the requested earmarks for his district. He includes these earmarks for the simple reason that if he doesn’t the money will go to the executive branch. How is that not looking out for his fellow Americans. If he didn’t include the earmarks, knowing the bill was going to pass, than he blatantly allowed his voters to be robbed of their deserved money. This would be worse. If the Bill is not passed, Dr. Paul and the people win, if the Bill is passed, Dr. Paul loses, but the people of his district win, and the executive branch doesn’t get the money. Seems very logical to me. How about you?
That would work out just fine if Congress were actually voting on spending money for Ron Paul’s people back home. Instead, they vote on a federal spending bill and he then diverts the voted for money away from what it was intended to be used for.
Seems less than constitutional to rob the government for pork from home eh?
No Jason, it does not seem logical. An earmark is money ADDED to a bill which increases spending. Money does not go to the executive branch if earmarks are not passed.
Say there is a bill to build a wall and it is 1 million dollars. If it goes to the President and is signed it becomes a 1 million dollar appropriation. If Dr. Paul adds 1 million dollars for a baby clinic in his district and the president signs it then the bill is 2 million dollars.
If we do not allow earmarks then the amount of spending is lower. It is also illogical for him to add the earmarks and vote against them.
Earmarks are one of the major reasons we are in terrible debt. It seems Paul is playing both sides of the issue by adding the earmark and letting others do the dirty work of voting for them.
Here’s how earmarks work:
Suppose you and two co-workers have a common lunch fund. You are debating what to order for lunch. You prefer Chinese food which costs less, but your two buddies want a fancy pizza with all the toppings.
Before you actually vote on where to order lunch from, you make it clear to them that if pizza wins, you are “earmarking” two slices for yourself. What the heck…it’s YOUR money.
When the vote is cast, you vote AGAINST the fancy pizza expenditure in favor of the more economical Chinese food.
When you lose the vote, aren’t you still entitled to the slices that you “earmarked” and paid for?
Ron Paul puts his earmarks in, but ALWAYS VOTES AGAINST THE FINAL BILL. When he loses the vote (which he always does because he is the most fiscally responsible man in Congress), he gets money earmarked for his district. If he doesnt earmark…that money will be spent elsewhere!…So if you dont eat your slices…..your buddies get to screw you out of lunch.
Do you get it now? Of course, the media won’t tell you the whole story of Ron Paul’s earmarks.
“When he loses the vote (which he always does because he is the most fiscally responsible man in Congress), he gets money earmarked for his district.”
let me fix that…
“When he loses the vote (which he always does because he’s the biggest hippocrite this side of Teddy Kennedy), he gets pork and gets to claim to be against it.”
There….
Your analogy on pizza and chinese is a good one. So basically you’re saying that the actual votes (you know for the pizza) don’t matter in the least as long as you earmark your share. So basically, RuPaul bypasses the entire process and gets the pork he wants.
No. Ted Kennedy always votes for the spending bills. Ron Paul aka Dr. No notoriously always votes against them. There is no hypocrisy at all.
If everyone voted like Ron Paul did government would be a hell of a lot smaller. Now if you want to say you dislike the idea of small governmnet and therefore oppose Ron Paul fine. But you can’t have it both ways. Either he’s for big government or small government. I’ll go with his voting record.
Watch this:
John, you are the ones who want it both ways. Ron Paul cannot be for smaller government and then add earmarks. Just because he votes against them does not mean they are OK because he knows they will pass without his vote so he can say he never voted for one (and be accurate) but he still added them so they would be passed.
John,
Earmarks require adding more money to a bill than is needed so that a certain portion of it can be specifically earmarked for a particular item.
In the pizza scenario, it would be an earmark if we added more than needed and then said the excess had to go to feed workers in another building. If we determine that one pizza will feed four people 2 slices each then that is the appropriated amount. If we then decide to feed the school for the blind across the street and order 100 pizzas and fund them (and earmark them for the school) we have then wasted money because we asked for more than we needed.
PORK equals waste. It adds money not needed so that it can be directed to a special project that should not be paid for by taxpayers.
I think I am familiar with it well enough to know earmarks cost money so by directing earmarks one increases government spending.
In the pizza analogy, the slices are not equal to the earmarks.
For you to earmark in that scenario, you would have to appropriate fund AWAY from pizza, therefore making the pizza purchase much smaller or non-existant.
Actually, earmarks and pork barrel spending are two separate things. Please look them up. If you are talking earmarks, the money is already appropriated for the bill. If you are talking pork barrel spending, there is additive spending. From what it appears (and I am trying to be neutral on this) is Congressman Paul is attempting to choose between the lesser of the two evils. He doesn’t want the bill to pass because it is not constitutionally authorized, but if it is going to pass, his constituents will not be left empty-handed. It’s kind of how the system works — regardless of what happens… the money goes down the toilet in his eyes. I do not think it is necessarily right either way, but I applaud him for helping his constituents. I think most of us can agree that earmarking is a bad way of conducting federal business.
It works the same in the military for the most part.
In the military, when it came spending time, our shop would ask what junk we wanted. We had a budget we were allowed to spend. If we didn’t ask for what we wanted, we got nothing, despite the money was for us, now it’s going to some other section that is going probably spend it on all sorts of crap they don’t need. We could call ourselves ‘fiscally responsible’ for not requesting any more than what we truely needed, but not knowing where the hell the rest of the money is going and foregoing the money allowed for us, it wasn’t in our interests just to not request anything, so we did. Now if we absolutely had nothing whatsoever to request money for, no love lost, even if it does go to somebody else who does get to spend more on crap they don’t need. we didn’t care. but if we (the voting constituency in this case) desired something, our shop boss would pass it up.
earmarks do not increase the spending. that is why we had a limit on to how much we could spend. the spending still gets spent regardless. In the case of the congress, it can either get passed or not. It almost always passes, so might as well use it. it’s a flawed system for sure, but what Mr. Paul is doing is between a rock and a hard place. it’s not hypocritical at all. it’s just looks that way on the surface. Mr. Paul isn’t a dumbass when it comes to economics.
Nick,
That was one of the more reasoned responses. I have always been against the idea that you had to spend what you had in order to get more. If you turn in money at the end of the year it should be used to reduce additional money in the future.
“If you turn in money at the end of the year it should be used to reduce additional money in the future.”
If that is what is happening, and Ron Paul is draining the pool that would otherwise be thrown into something else -known- to be better used, then he’s either inept, hypocrite or uneducated on the matter.
However I don’t think it’s his problem that the system is hardcoded as it is. He also doesn’t request it himself, he’s basically the liaison for the voters who want their projects done. None of the earmarks are to go to him or his close pals, as has been sort of insinuated by anti-Paul brigades. People in the district want something, if Paul doesn’t request it for them even though the vote passes often, he’s screwing his district. And by getting their funds, he’s not screwing anybody else in other districts as they all have their shares of the pool that don’t get subtracted. It’s whether or not that pool of money is to be thrown into something better used is the question and whether congresspeople can do anything about it. If they can’t, get what you can take.
Why don’t we end earmarks and pork and reduce the tax burden of this country. Show me a person who will do that and I will vote for him.