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DEL.ICIO.USGOP launching anti-earmark campaign; Marshall takes out campaign “insurance policy”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Rep. Tom Price (R-Roswell) was first, followed closely by Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Grantville). Within days of each other, the duo declared that they’d stop using congressional earmarks to bring home federal funds for local projects.
The reasons are becoming clearer.
President Bush is set to use tonight’s State of the Union address to lash out at a Democratically controlled Congress for pork-barrel spending. The Bush criticism, and the new House Republican anti-earmark campaign, is designed to resonate with voters frustrated and angry over the status quo in Congress.
Helping the GOP craft that anti-earmark, election-year message is Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Savannah), who as a House appropriator is known to bring whole federal pigs home to Georgia — and to do so proudly.
Kingston’s advice includes this first rule:
“No more ‘monuments to me.’ Lawmakers should not use taxpayer money to fund projects named after themselves.”
Well, duh.
Given that even a blind dog could sniff out this trap, Democrats are already preparing a defense. First among them was Rep. Jim Marshall (D-Macon), one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the country.
Last week, Marshall took out what Congressional Quarterly dubbed an “election year insurance policy,” a earmark-reform bill that allows Marshall to claim the same moral high ground as the GOP.
Marshall’s bill “would ensure that earmarks dropped into conference reports — or added to bills traded between the chambers — would be disclosed like other earmarks, and that their sponsors would have to certify that they have no financial interest in the projects.”
Marshall’s spokesman, Doug Moore, says the new bill has nothing to do with the coming fall campaign, which will again present Marshall with GOP opposition. Rather, it’s a fix for an “inadvertent” loophole in current earmark rules.
“Frankly, I don’t see it as a big issue in our district,” Moore said, adding that no one in Marshall’s district has objected to him bringing home federal funds. “We do not get criticism from Georgia.”
Comments
By Mike K.
January 28, 2008 6:10 PM | Link to this
“President Bush is set to use tonight’s State of the Union address to lash out at a Democratically controlled Congress for pork-barrel spending.”
Pot, meet Kettle.
By RJ
January 28, 2008 8:45 PM | Link to this
Price, Westmorland, and the others who voted with Bush to create this nation’s tillion dollar defict have no standing whatsoever to talk about earmarks. These people really think Georgia voters are stupid.
The average voter is worried about his or her job, putting gas in their cars to go to work, and feeding their children and what do they get from the Republican leadership… another marketing campaign designed to tell them their pain is an illusion.
Fool me once shame on you…fool me twice shame on me.