This may come as a surprise to … absolutely no one, but what Rudy Giuliani says and what he does are frequently at odds with one another. In the latest example, Candidate Giuliani hates earmarks, but Businessman Giuliani loves ’em.
On the campaign trail, Rudy Giuliani rails against congressional spending set aside for lawmakers’ pet projects. In Washington, his law firm fights to obtain them.
Giuliani, the Republican presidential front-runner, last month pledged to “get rid of” so-called earmarks, which cost taxpayers about $13 billion this year, saying his party should promote “fiscal discipline.” Just weeks later, Bracewell & Giuliani LLP won $3 million worth of projects for its clients in defense-spending legislation. […]
In all, Bracewell & Giuliani sought federal earmarks for 14 companies this year, 11 of which hired the firm after Giuliani joined in March 2005, Senate records show. Giuliani, 63, isn’t registered as a lobbyist. The firm paid him $1.2 million last year, according to his personal financial-disclosure form.
The defense-spending legislation approved this month by Congress contained funding for three of those clients, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based advocacy group that opposes special projects that lawmakers insert in spending bills without public debate.
Republican consultant Eddie Mahe responded, “It’s a bit hypocritical. He profits from it. I don’t think Joe Sixpack is going to buy into that.”
Nor should he. For Giuliani to run on anti-earmark platform after (successfully) fighting for clients’ earmarks in private practice requires even more cognitive dissonance than most of the former mayor’s contradictions.
Make no mistake; opposition to earmarks is at the heart of Giuliani’s approach to the federal budget.
Giuliani has assailed earmarks for months. “When I’m nominated, we’ll have this party back as a party clearly rooted in fiscal discipline,” he told the Americans for Prosperity Foundation, a Washington group that supports spending and tax cuts, last month. He said that meant “restraining spending, no more earmarks, low taxes.”
Olivia Zink, field director for Concord-based PrioritiesNH, which backs defense-spending cuts, said Giuliani responded to a question she asked in Wolfeboro in July that he would cut all earmarks, though he wouldn’t reduce the rest of the defense budget.
Giuliani also went after earmarks in a June interview on Fox News. “The idea of anonymous spending of billions and billions and hundreds of billions of dollars is totally undemocratic and creates total unaccountability,” he said. “You have to end earmarks.”
Indeed, Giuliani has blamed Dems for not having eliminated the abuses altogether.
At an Aug. 7, 2007 town hall meeting at Bettendorf High School in Iowa, Giuliani claimed, “Well, the Democrats have been in power now for eight months. Not only have they not done away with earmarks, they’ve increased them.”
Earmarking by the 110th Congress has significantly declined from levels during the previous conservative-led Congresses. An analysis by Citizens Against Government Waste estimates that earmarks in FY08 appropriations bills are “down about 33 percent from the $29 billion in earmarks in FY06 spending bills.”
And they might be down even more, if Giuliani hadn’t been lining up pork-barrel spending for his high-priced clients.
Just to clarify a point, these earmarks relate to Giuliani’s law firm (Bracewell & Giuliani), not his consulting firm (Giuliani Partners). How many earmarks did the former mayor line up for his consultancy clients? It’s hard to say — he refuses to release a client list.