House Democrats Sidestep Own Rules to Shield Lawmakers' Pork Barrel Projects
Sunday, June 03, 2007

WASHINGTON — After promising unprecedented openness regarding Congress' pork barrel practices, House Democrats are moving in the opposite direction as they draw up spending bills for the upcoming budget year.

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.

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 to spending measures in the fall. That is when House and Senate negotiators assemble final bills.

Such requests total billions of dollars.

As a result, most lawmakers will not get a chance to oppose specific projects as wasteful or questionable when the spending bills for various agencies get their first votes in the full House in June.

The House-Senate compromise bills due for final action in September cannot be amended and are subject to only one hour of debate, precluding challenges to individual projects.

Obey insists he is reluctantly taking the step because Appropriations Committee members and staff have not had enough time to fully review the 36,000 earmark requests that have flooded the committee.

What Obey is doing runs counter to new rules that Democrats promised would make such spending decisions more open.

It doesn't matter who they are. They are ALL crooks. EVERY politician is in it to fill his/her pockets as full as they can and the people of the US be damned.

We should shoot them all and start over.

No shit. The level of hypocrisy form the Democrats is stunning to me. ( But probably shouldn't be ).

This kind of needling frustration in our leaders makes the citizenship want to do bad things to them personally. You know? I mean, they say " Want real change? Then vote accordingly." Then we do - and then we get this? It takes away hope. And man, if they lower the bar any further, we're going to dissolve.

I have been trying to make the point on this forum that the Democrats are just as bad as the Republicans have been. There is no difference.

Not surprisingly, the Kool-Aid liberals that frequent this forum can't seem to get that through their heads.

CJ, you are one of the few that seems to have an open mind. It's refreshing.

By the way, I think we should recall Bush. Not for the war in Iraq, but for his handling of the border and his support of this very lame amnesty bill now wallowing through Congress.

"CJ, you are one of the few that seems to have an open mind."

Thanks - somehow it doesn't make me feel any better though. ( I know what you are saying though - so thanks. I'd prefer to be surprised by my own party in the sense that I NEED to see hope fulfilled ).

Nobody can say that their party is above any of this stuff any longer. At least not with a straight face. I will say however, that it stings when they ask you to trust them, you do, and then, you know, they just go and decide to do something else. Yes, the tangible results matter - obviously - but when they fuck with the system like they do, it does something more to me than just sting.

Both parties are bad. This little stunt clearly shows problems with the Democrats.

However, this does not diminish the scope of damage done to us by the GOP. I'm not happy with our set of choices, but the better choice by far is the Democratic party.

Kool-aid liberals indeed.

At least I didn't vote for this ass.

Edit: F-it.

Let's just put it into perspective shall we?

We've got Dems squabbling, protecting some pork and handing a few too many goodies to the megacorps. Arguably this really is on us. We either start working double time to reform our electorial process and address that or deal. Maybe it's easier to just deal, afterall that's just money.

The GOP?

Shit on constitution repeatedly. Started wars on lies, still lying, etc... Failure to properly govern on a lot of levels, packing courts and key government departments with staunch ideologues, creating bigger government, placing the burden of all their games on everybody but big business and the elite, leveraging rightie whackos who clearly want a theocracy,... it goes on and gets quite ugly from there.

The only reason anybody is saying, "The Dems are bad too!" is so the GOP just looks bad, instead of really fucking bad.

Good grief.

We all deserve the hard swing left that's coming. Frankly, I'm not at all pleased with that idea as I much prefer a more moderate approach on most things. But, to all of those who supported this ass and his party, hope you lube up, or it's not just gonna be as much fun.

Missing, there is an old saying from somewhere that goes "no one is as blind as the man who will not see". This seems so appropriate where you're views on this matter are concerned.

Bite me.

Enjoy your Sunday Deane.

At least I'm not feeble minded enough to forget so easily when I've been harmed. I've lived my entire life not taking shit from morons and I'm sure as heck not gonna start now.

You are just chafing because you've repeatedly tried to convince me that either:

-the harm is actually ok, just part of how the world works

-I've really not been harmed, if only I could see it

-I don't know what's good for me

etc...

Like I said, I'm not taking shit from morons any more. Support it or stuff it. And that's from an ex Republican, who wonders daily just where reason has gone.

BTW: I am not implying you Deane, are either feeble or a moron. I did mean enjoy your Sunday in the nice way, not the, "Thank you and F-you" way.