{"id":14536,"date":"2008-02-10T13:00:38","date_gmt":"2008-02-10T18:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/14536.html"},"modified":"2008-02-10T13:00:38","modified_gmt":"2008-02-10T18:00:38","slug":"bush-to-congress-earmarks-for-me-but-not-for-thee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bush-to-congress-earmarks-for-me-but-not-for-thee\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush to Congress: Earmarks for me, but not for thee"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his recent State of the Union address, Bush told lawmakers<\/a>, “The people’s trust in their government is undermined by congressional earmarks.”<\/p>\n

What he didn’t mention was his belief that the people’s trust in their government is entirely unaffected by the administration’s<\/i> earmarks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

President Bush often denounces the propensity of Congress to earmark money for pet projects. But in his new budget, Mr. Bush has requested money for thousands of similar projects.<\/p>\n

He asked for money to build fish hatcheries, eradicate agricultural pests, conduct research, pave highways, dredge harbors and perform many other specific local tasks.<\/p>\n

The details are buried deep in the president’s budget, just as most Congressional earmarks are buried in obscure committee reports that accompany spending bills.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s quite a list of pork projects the president wants to fund, including some specific earmarks the administration decried in the past but now wants to expand. A million here for an air traffic control tower, $12 million for a parachute repair shop, $6 million here for a study on the “properties of asphalt,” $2 million there for a neutrino detector at the South Pole. It’s quite a laundry list.<\/p>\n

The White House defense for all of this is two-fold: 1) these are actually good<\/i> earmarks; and 2) they shouldn’t count as earmarks anyway.
\n
\nOn the first point…<\/p>\n

The White House contends that when the president requests money for a project, it has gone through a rigorous review — by the agency, the White House or both — using objective criteria.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…and on the second.<\/p>\n

The White House defines “earmarks” in a way that applies only to projects designated by Congress, not to those requested by the administration.<\/p>\n

“Earmarks,” as defined by the White House, “are funds provided by Congress for projects or programs where the Congressional direction (in bill or report language) circumvents the merit-based or competitive allocation process, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the executive branch to properly manage funds.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, isn’t that<\/i> convenient.<\/p>\n

Taken on the whole, we have a president who never hesitated to sign pork-laden spending bills when Republicans ran Congress, lecturing lawmakers about the evils of earmarks while filling his own budget with special projects of his own.<\/p>\n

Even close GOP allies of the Bush gang is balking. “The executive branch should be held accountable for its own earmark practices,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said.<\/p>\n

Now there’s a concept.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his recent State of the Union address, Bush told lawmakers, “The people’s trust in their government is undermined by congressional earmarks.” What he didn’t mention was his belief that the people’s trust in their government is entirely unaffected by the administration’s earmarks. President Bush often denounces the propensity of Congress to earmark money for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14536\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}