‘Oh You Thought I Was Including My Tea Party Self in That Whole No Earmarks Thing? Nah’
What’s more hypocritical than a born-again homophobe with a same-sex “escort?” How about tea party politicians criticizing government spending while requesting all they can get for the folks back home? The National Journal:
According to a Hotline review of records compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste, the 52 members of the caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010, the last year for which records are available.
“It’s disturbing to see the Tea Party Caucus requested that much in earmarks. This is their time to put up or shut up, to be blunt,” said David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste. “There’s going to be a huge backlash if they continue to request earmarks.”
In founding the caucus in July, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said she was giving voice to Americans who were sick of government over-spending.
“The American people are speaking out loud and clear. They have had enough of the spending, the bureaucracy, and the government knows best mentality running rampant today throughout the halls of Congress,” Bachmann said in a July 15 statement.
And who had the most requests? Not Bachmann, but probably someone from a large population state with plenty of constituents, right? Wrong. How about a guy from Mon-frickin’-tana which, with just under a million people, is ranked 44th in residents in the country?
Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) takes the prize as the Tea Partier with his name on the most earmarks. Rehberg’s office requested funding for 88 projects, either solely or by co-signing earmarks requests with Sens. Max Baucus (D) and Jon Tester (D), at a cost of $100,514,200. On his own, Rehberg requested 20 earmarks valued at more than $9.6 million.
The full list of tea bagger earmark for the past year is here.
