TDPS: Ultimate hypocrisy, anti-earmark Tea Party Caucus = $1 billion in earmarks

[celtics23]

Run time: 06:58 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hshAvl2iIyI   Posted on YouTube: December 07, 2010 By YouTube Member: MidweekPolitics Views on YouTube: 179   Posted on DU: December 09, 2010 By DU Member: celtics23 Views on DU: 419

 
From: www.davidpakman.com | Subscription: www.davidpakman.com/membership | YouTube: www.youtube.com/midweekpolitics

David: So we heard, Louis, a lot of talk during the last election about how the Tea Party and the Congressional Tea Party Caucus and true Republicans are all about reducing earmarks, no more earmarks, right? No more spending, no more earmarks. We heard that from Rand Paul and we heard it from countless other candidates, did we not?

Louis: We did.

David: Well, it turns out that actually, members of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress used the 111th Congress to request literally hundreds of earmarks that altogether added more than $1 billion to the federal budget. Surprised?

Louis: Nope.

David: The 52 members of the caucus, which pledges, of course, to cut spending and reduce the size of government requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at over $1 billion during fiscal year 2010. So here's the thing, I want to be very clear here because I can already see the emails I'm going to get. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, the same one who was against the Census and went into a talking point trance on Election Day with Chris Matthews, you remember.

Louis: Mmhmm.

David: She was giving voice to Americans who were sick of government overspending, that's what she said when she founded the Tea Party... the Congressional Tea Party Caucus. Now, she did not actually, in her defense, she didn't request any earmarks personally that I researched, but this is her caucus, and she decided who would be in and she opened up the doors and people said that sounds good to me, because we need to decrease government spending, we need to decrease earmarks. And she said, "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 through the halls of Congress."

Well, even though the American people have had enough of that, apparently, it turns out that her 51 Tea Party colleagues have not had enough, because they're going with business as usual, essentially. Congressman Denny Rehberg, Republican from Montana, takes the prize as the Tea Partier with his name on the most earmarks. His official... his office requested funding for 88 projects either by himself or co-signing earmark requests at a cost of $100 million. On his own, he requested 20 earmarks valued at more than $9.6 million.

It's interesting to me, but not surprising, that the Republicans have for years touted cuts in spending, but if we actually look back to the Reagan years, right, this is not any kind of fuzzy Washington math, this is not any kind of conspiracy theory, this is just a basic search into any publicly available information about these numbers. Starting with the Reagan years, history has shown us that Republicans spend more than Democrats. With their historical spending records, it's the Democrats who are still being labeled by the high-spending Republicans as the tax-and-spenders. Maybe a better name would be the "spend it like you got it" party. I don't know.

The reality obviously, Louis, if we're going to talk about political reality, is that why would any member of Congress stop obtaining earmarks when everyone else is still doing it? It's just cheating your own district. I get that. But why can't we actually bring that up when Rand Paul is going completely off his rocker saying to Christiane Amanpour, for example, no, "No more earmarks," "No more earmarks." Those are his words.

Louis: Right.

David: Why can't somebody then say hold on a second, Rand, the political reality is that no more earmarks is BS, it's bogus? Why not be politically realistic? No, we talk about that now, and now apparently it's too early to talk about it because Rand Paul's not in office, but it's also too late because he's not campaigning, he's already been voted in.

Louis: Right.

David: How convenient, we've hit the exact wrong time, Louis, to address the fact that lowering spending and no more earmarks are actually just made-up campaign talking points that literally mean nothing to the people that ran on them.

Louis: But they worked.

David: They worked.

Louis: They worked incredibly well. And who knows what will happen next time he runs. I hope someone calls him out on it.

David: Well, again, it's still early to see what he will do.

Louis: Right.

David: But we have already heard from him. And the thing here is not that we should be surprised that actually the Tea Party caucus and new Tea Partiers are going to be requesting as many earmarks as anybody, that's not the surprise. The real thing we should be talking about here is where were the Tea Partiers when George W. Bush exploded spending during his eight years in office? Well, the Tea Party is, as they say, it is not about Republicans or Democrats or criticizing liberals or Barack Obama, the Tea Party is about their issues, which if you still are having trouble figuring out what they are, you're not alone. Where were they during George W. Bush? That's when we saw explosive increases in the deficit. We saw a decreasing deficit with Bill Clinton, remember him?

Louis: Mmhmm.

David: George W. Bush, deficit explodes, but it is after he leaves office that the Tea Party now is angry with Barack Obama over a health care bill that reduces the deficit by $143 billion?

Louis: A stimulus package.

David: That's right. So that is really the discussion that is missing here. Why doesn't somebody just ask the Tea Partiers this? And I've seen it asked a couple of times here and there, and the reality is that there are no good answers. And that...

Louis: Only non-answers.

David: There are non-answers, there are talking point comas, that is what we are used to here. And I know we'll get emails from Republicans saying hey, these guys aren't even in office yet. Well, the Congressional Tea Party Caucus was in office during the 111th Congress, and on a whole, we saw an abomination. We saw nothing that matched what they spoke about. But we're not hearing much about that. Maybe we will once they take office. Fine, we'll wait, Louis. We have to wait. We cannot... even if they say what they will do, we can't get ahead of ourselves. But we also couldn't ask about it during the campaign, or at least, nobody did, and when they did, there were no answers. Fantastic.

[donthebun]

1. Hypocrisy, but EXPECTED hypocrisy