Who??? The United States Senate ....
Senators diverted $2.6 Billion from the recently passed Defense spending bill to pork projects. The money was pulled out of the Pentagon's Operations and Maintenance accounts - money used to pay for fuel, ammunition, troop supplies, etc.
Pork projects such as $20 million to fund an educational institute named for Sen Ted Kennedy (sponsored by Sen Inouye D-HI and Sen Kerry D-MA), $25 million for a WWII Museum at the University of New Orleans (Sen Landrieu D-LA and Sen Vitter R-LA), $20 million for the Maui Space Surveillance System (Sen Inouye D-HI), $25 Million for the Hawaii Federal Health Care Network (Sen Inouye D-HI) ... and a whole lot more.
Top Democrat porker is Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), 36 earmarks totalling $206 million stolen from the troops. Top Republican porker is Senator Thad Conchran (R-MS), with 48 earmarks at $216 milion. This is one exercise in bi-partisanship that we can definitely do without.
These elected officials stole tax money designated for our troops in order to buy votes in their own states. Pork is a time dis-honored fact of Washington, but at the expense of our troops in the field? It's criminal, and I think they ought to be prosecuted for theft.
To be fair to the Obama Administration, the White House Office of Management and Budget has called for the repeal of all of the pork earmarks. Good for them.
Friday, October 16, 2009
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3 comments:
Better yet, send every last one of them over to live in Afghanistan
Let me think, wasn't Obama the candidate for no more pork earmarks?? Or am I getting something confused?
To be fair, and I feel I do need to do that in order to complain as much as I do about him, Obama had nothing to do with this. It was done my members of the US Senate, both Republicans and Democrats. Obama's OMB has called for removal of these earmarks from the bill, though it won't happen.
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