Democrat hypocrisy is, once again, on full display.
Democrats lied their way into power this year promising a reform of the ‘earmark’ system and make it more transparent to the taxpaying public rightly disgusted with Congress’s free-spending of our money. Let’s call earmarks exactly what they are: Bribes! They are that which Congress-critters, in the form of expensive projects of questionable public worth, use to buy the votes of their home districts so the Congress-critter can stay in
Washington and spend more of our money. It is a long disgusting and corrupt practice engaged in by both parties but now elevated to high art by the current crop of thieves. As a result, the Democrat Congress is now even less popular in national polls than the Republican one before it. That is no small feat!
Using the earmark issue to pummel Republics in the 2006 election, Democrats made great theater of passing an ‘earmarks reform’ bill. Now all earmarks are supposed to be publicized in an online record which, most importantly, identifies the name of the member who submitted each request. Not surprisingly, this transparency has had a big effect on the Republican presidential candidates, but not on the Democrats!
Among the presidential candidates, many Republicans currently holding office have responded to media requests to make public all their earmarks. They presumably have done so because they have nothing to hide, but not the Democrats whose candidates have been much less forthright. (feigned shock and surprise).
Only Barack Obama has voluntarily made his earmark information publicly available. The others are covering their tracks. Senator Joe Biden's spokeswoman explained, ``We don't release them until the committee has had the opportunity to review the requests.'' A spokeswoman for the Dennis Kucinich campaign argued, ``We never have made our earmarks public.''
A little digging shows why they are so evasive. In fiscal year 2006, Chris Dodd and fellow Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman were jointly responsible for more than $100 million worth of earmarks for their home state, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Clinton campaign refused to respond at all to requests that she identify her earmarks.
The numbers speak for themselves. Ever since flouncing into Washington, Her Hilliaryness has worked tirelessly to bring pork (bribes) home to her politically adopted state, New York.
Clinton, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, placed $2.2 billion worth of earmarks in spending bills from 2002-2006. One would have to concede that she is good at it. In the fiscal 2008 defense-spending bill alone, Clinton successfully attached 26 earmarks worth $148 million, which was the most of any Democrat except Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, who is now chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
The earmark game is a treacherous one because it is so easy to find specific instances, like the bridge to nowhere in Alaska, that are repulsive to voters. With such a successful track record, this will be a genuine liability for Clinton. That probably explains why she's trying to bury her record. But even digging through the limited list of earmarks that could be acquire suggested that Clinton has deftly spread federal taxpayers' money around to parochial projects of questionable public value, sending, for example, $250,000 to the Seneca Knitting Mill, and $200,000 to the Buffalo Urban Arts Center.
Such spending projects might be great local politics, but they produce national outrage as our federal dollars are bled away from health care and national security. Each one may seem small, but collectively they are not.
The Democrat Party and their sycophants in Main Stream Media have been so busy preparing for the coronation of Queen Hillary that they have purposely failed to take a critical look at her record on this subject (as well as many others that would have buried a conservative candidate).
Will her hypocrisy be questions in the months ahead? Time will tell.
