Pork? What pork?

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674

Originally posted by: JD50

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit

Youi keep declaring victory yet I haven't seen a link to any real pork in the military funding bill? I guess your definition of pork is diffrent for D's then it is for R's.

Face it JD, your a tool.

WTF are you talking about?? How many times do I have to say that its all pork and its all disgusting for it to sink in that I am not singling out either party? You are the one trying to pick and choose what you think is pork spending. You are trying to make up the rules as you go along, its ridiculous.

I gave you a link to what is acknowledged by everyone but yourself to pork spending in that bill. Its not my fault that you want to act like my 4 year old son, stick your fingers in your ears and say "lalalalalalalalalalalal I can't hear you alallalalalalala".

Very entertaining watching the resident Republicans writher in pain now. :laugh:

The D's don't have enough votes/power to pass any "REAL" pork projects..... at least not yet. This is just a little squirmming so far, the "withering in pain" part hasn't even started yet. Maybe when the blood-letting begins the American people will be pissed off enough to agree on something? LOL, I doubt it though, Corporate America will buy off whoever is in charge at just the right time.

 

[JD50]

Originally posted by: PELarson

Originally posted by: JD50

Originally posted by: PELarson

Originally posted by: JD50

Originally posted by: PELarson

Originally posted by: JD50

Originally posted by: 1EZduzit
You claimed that bill was full of pork, now produce it. the argument isn't if both side are guilty of pork spending, of course they both do it. The argument is that you choose to call out the Democrats on it after 6 1/2 years of pork spending by the R's. All of a sudden it's an issue to you? LMAO.

Then you claimed that the military funding bill was full of pork. Why, because someone told you it was? Show me the pork in that bill.

Your either being totally partisian or letting yourself be used like a tool. Neither of which speaks very well for you.

Are you slow? Click the link I provided and look around that site a little bit. Nevermind, I'll hold your hand....President Bush?s request for $103 billion to fund the Global War on Terror and hurricane relief efforts has ballooned into a $124.1 billion measure stuffed full of pork! The additional $20 billion is aimed at projects that have nothing to do with the War or hurricane relief.

CLICK ME!

Washington, D.C. -- Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today criticized the House of Representatives for out-of-control spending and unrelated policy provisions in the emergency war supplemental bill (HR 1591). President Bush requested $103 billion in emergency spending for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and disaster relief. The House Appropriations Committee included an additional $21 billion in the U.S. Readiness, Veterans? Health and Iraq Accountability Act, 2007, that is being marked up today.


?By passing earmark reforms, Congress signaled that it was serious about restoring fiscal responsibility to the budget process,? CAGW President Tom Schatz said. ?It seems the commitment to reform was short-lived, as Congress fattens up the emergency spending bill with special-interest goodies.?


Below is a list of spending and policy provisions in the supplemental that are unrelated to military operations.

$500 million for emergency wildfires suppression; the Forest Service currently has $831 million for this purpose;

CLICK ME!

Washington, D.C. -- Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today criticized the House of Representatives for out-of-control spending and unrelated policy provisions in the emergency war supplemental bill (HR 1591). President Bush requested $103 billion in emergency spending for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and disaster relief. The House Appropriations Committee included an additional $21 billion in the U.S. Readiness, Veterans? Health and Iraq Accountability Act, 2007, that is being marked up today.


?By passing earmark reforms, Congress signaled that it was serious about restoring fiscal responsibility to the budget process,? CAGW President Tom Schatz said. ?It seems the commitment to reform was short-lived, as Congress fattens up the emergency spending bill with special-interest goodies.?


Below is a list of spending and policy provisions in the supplemental that are unrelated to military operations.

$500 million for emergency wildfires suppression; the Forest Service currently has $831 million for this purpose;

<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.axcessnews.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=13132">"Recently, the U.S. Forest Service presented a budget asking for a 23 percent funding increase to a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. It was called "dead on arrival" by several senators and staff members.

If the U.S. Forest Service has to divert funds from other programs to cover the summer fire season, grants could be reduced to make up shortfalls, said Mark Stanford, Texas Forest Service fire operations chief. He said he understands why volunteer departments are worried.

"If you look at is as a pie, the pie's only so big," Stanford said. "Does that make the U.S. Forest Service the bad guys? No, it just is what it is. The funding's got to come from somewhere."

The Government Accountability Office and the U.S. Agriculture Department's inspector general are calling for more efficient cost management, congressional officials said. Nationwide, the 2006 fire season wiped out the U.S. Forest Service's $500 million contingency fund.

"If you just cut costs, you end up in a situation where there's a fire, and there's no one there to attend to it," said Scott Miller, counsel to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. "We want to remain as successful as we are right now in managing wildfires but to do so with fewer costs."

</a>


Appears to me that the $500 million is needed!

What is your point?

Pointin' out that at least one of the items you pointed out as pork isn't pork!

Congrats, 500 million down, only 20.5 billion to go!

BTW, what does that have to do with funding for the troops?

You mean what does it have to do with keeping America safe?[/quote]

No, I mean what does it have to do with President Bush?s request for $103 billion to fund the Global War on Terror and hurricane relief efforts?

Do you understand what pork is?

 

[DealMonkey]

Excuse me gents, but need I remind you that the premise of this thread isn't pork itself (which we all seem to universally agree is BAD regardless of party), rather it's about this alleged Democratic effort to suppress the reporting of earmarks by allegedly shutting down the CRS?

I see the lying thread topic still hasn't been changed. Interesting that Shivetya will swallow whatever lies and bullshit Fox News spews, regardless of the truth.

:thumbsdown:

 

[DealMonkey]

By the way, I believe I pointed this out in another Us vs. Them thread recently: It's impossible for both sides to equally engage in pork-peddling earmarking. If you added up each side's offenses, statistically-speaking it is most likely that one will turn out to be worse than the other. It would be highly unlikely for both sides to tie.

 

[JD50]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey
Excuse me gents, but need I remind you that the premise of this thread isn't pork itself (which we all seem to universally agree is BAD regardless of party), rather it's about this alleged Democratic effort to suppress the reporting of earmarks by allegedly shutting down the CRS?

I see the lying thread topic still hasn't been changed. Interesting that Shivetya will swallow whatever lies and bullshit Fox News spews, regardless of the truth.

:thumbsdown:

Well hey, Daves threads can have a lie as the thread topic for months and nothing happens to him......But you're right, this did get a little off topic, if they did try to make it look like the Dems shut down the CRS and they really didn't, then thats pretty bad.

 

[imported_Infidel]

I'm as against pork as the next person, but I think that concessions had to be made in order to get the necessary votes to pass the legislation. I think it's BS that pork gets used as a bribe for voting for the legislation, but that's how reps bring money home to their state/constituencies. It's not right, but it's how gov't works, and it isn't exclusive to either party. The extent of it may differ however, and how the prez deals with it differs.

Ultimately, this congress is still worlds ahead of the 109th, and they're only a few months into the year.

 

[DealMonkey]

Here some interesting factual data to consume. This paper attempts to study a large data set of pork spending and examine the factors that contribute to pork spending and where that pork tends to go state-vs-state. They don't attempt to pin the problem on one particular party, rather they examine the majority-minority party status impact on pork spending.

Long story short, here's the gist of what they found:

Returning to Balla et al. (2002), they find that the likelihood of receiving a pork barrel project is distributed evenly between the majority and minority parties but the majority enjoys an advantage in the dollar amount of earmarks. This finding does help to reconcile the universal theories of distributive politics with the results of majority party advantage put forth by others (Levitt and Snyder 1995; Carsey and Rundquist 1999; Lee and Oppenheimer 1999, Lee 2000)

The results are consistent with the theory that the majority party can insulate itself from being blamed for a lack of fiscal constraint if both parties are guilty of spending money on local concerns. Yet, the majority maintains an advantage by spending more on their constituents than the minority.

http://www.duke.edu/~bjn3/senateconf/crespin-finocchiaro.pdf

So what they're saying here, and what seems to be the rule, is that while BOTH parties enjoy about the same number of earmarks, the majority party gets a nice advantage in the dollar value of those earmarks.

So both parties do it, but the majority sends more $ to their home districts.

So you'd only have to take a cursory look at who's controlled Congress for the last 12 years or so to understand who leads the pork race. And the majority party, the one spending the most, tries to get political cover for it by claiming that both sides do it.

 

[JD50]

Originally posted by: DealMonkey
Here some interesting factual data to consume. This paper attempts to study a large data set of pork spending and examine the factors that contribute to pork spending and where that pork tends to go state-vs-state. They don't attempt to pin the problem on one particular party, rather they examine the majority-minority party status impact on pork spending.

Long story short, here's the gist of what they found:

Returning to Balla et al. (2002), they find that the likelihood of receiving a pork barrel project is distributed evenly between the majority and minority parties but the majority enjoys an advantage in the dollar amount of earmarks. This finding does help to reconcile the universal theories of distributive politics with the results of majority party advantage put forth by others (Levitt and Snyder 1995; Carsey and Rundquist 1999; Lee and Oppenheimer 1999, Lee 2000)

The results are consistent with the theory that the majority party can insulate itself from being blamed for a lack of fiscal constraint if both parties are guilty of spending money on local concerns. Yet, the majority maintains an advantage by spending more on their constituents than the minority.

http://www.duke.edu/~bjn3/senateconf/crespin-finocchiaro.pdf

So what they're saying here, and what seems to be the rule, is that while BOTH parties enjoy about the same number of earmarks, the majority party gets a nice advantage in the dollar value of those earmarks.

So both parties do it, but the majority sends more $ to their home districts.

So you'd only have to take a cursory look at who's controlled Congress for the last 12 years or so to understand who leads the pork race. And the majority party, the one spending the most, tries to get political cover for it by claiming that both sides do it.

Yea, that makes sense. It will be interesting to see if that trend continues over the next couple of years. I hope that it does not, but I won't be surprised if it does.

 

[DealMonkey]

The unfortunate part of the pork story is that in the end, it buys votes. The politicians get it, when they bring home fat pork-projects to their home district/state, they win. And that sort of positive reinforcement just means they'll keep doing it over and over. Pork = votes = power.

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: techs
:thumbsdown:
Until we change a system where money decides elections and the businesses and groups that donate that money have more power than the people the situation will NOT change.

How do you propose we do that?

 

[her209]

Originally posted by: her209
link

Embattled CRS Director Speaks Out on Earmarks

A Wall Street Journal column on March 26 reported that the Congressional Research Service "will no longer respond to requests from members of Congress on the size, number of background of [budget] earmarks." The new CRS policy, the Journal article alleged, "is helping its masters hide wasteful spending."

"The article is replete with mischaracterizations of CRS work and policies," wrote CRS Director Daniel P. Mulhollan in a memo to all CRS staff (pdf). "Such attacks on our independence cannot go unanswered."

Mr. Mulhollan defended his agency in a letter to the editor of the Wall Street Journal, circulated with his March 26 memo. A copy was obtained by Secrecy News.

The Journal article "gratuitously alludes to issues related to public access to CRS work," Mr. Mulhollan wrote in his letter. "The restriction on publication of CRS work was established long ago by Congress. CRS internal policies regarding distribution of its products ensure compliance with congressional directives. We leave to Members and committees the discretion to share CRS products how and when they wish."

"CRS has recently been subjected to much scrutiny because we have not shied away from analysis of controversial issues," Director Mulhollan told CRS staff.

Bump again!