Democrats hide pet projects from voters

[Depth]

"Beginning with the first 100 hours, the House passed, with broad bipartisan support, legislation to make America safer at home; make our economy stronger and fairer; make college more accessible; make health care more affordable; advance embryonic stem cell research; and bring us closer to our goal of energy independence. We restored openness and accountability to our government with tough ethical reforms." - Nancy "Full of Shit" Pelosi (April 13, 2007)


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070603/...s_pet_projects

WASHINGTON - After promising unprecedented openness regarding Congress' pork barrel practices, House Democrats are moving in the opposite direction as they draw up spending bills for the upcoming budget year.

Democrats are sidestepping rules approved their first day in power in January to clearly identify "earmarks" — lawmakers' requests for specific projects and contracts for their states.

Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them.

Rep. David Obey (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., says those requests for dams, community grants and research contracts for favored universities or hospitals will be added to spending measures in the fall. That is when House and Senate negotiators assemble final bills.

Such requests total billions of dollars.

As a result, most lawmakers will not get a chance to oppose specific projects as wasteful or questionable when the spending bills for various agencies get their first votes in the full House in June.

The House-Senate compromise bills due for final action in September cannot be amended and are subject to only one hour of debate, precluding challenges to individual projects.

Obey insists he is reluctantly taking the step because Appropriations Committee members and staff have not had enough time to fully review the 36,000 earmark requests that have flooded the committee.

What Obey is doing runs counter to new rules that Democrats promised would make such spending decisions more open.

[TheMMAn]

i am shocked

[Clam Section]

Bait 'n Switch...it never gets old.

[AmericaOverAll]

This Democratic congress is as corrupt as any.

[J-Fight]

I"m sorry but you can't say that this Congress is as corrupt as the last yet, this is just earmark spending. Gotta get me something juicer than this................

[Octavian]

I'm sorry... maybe I missed the part in the article, which is rife with poor writing, where it plainly spells out Democratic corruption.

[BayAreaGuy]

Depth- If you don't like this, you must have HATED the last Republican Congress.

[clmetal]

Originally Posted by BayAreaGuy

Depth- If you don't like this, you must have HATED the last Republican Congress.

I hate all congress people for this. The democrats recently ran on it, and that was something I hope they would do. Remember too, only congress has the constitutional authority to tax and spend (pres only w a veto), so they are to blame

Recently, we have had record breaking revenue years (in excess of inflation), and we are still running deep in the red, and the deficit figures don't reflect social security.

Lobbying/earmarks/pork are one of the biggest problems for our country today. Result, QPQ/bribes, our growing national debt and lobbyists counting way more than popular opinion

[SleepyBoy]

It's like a race, who can spend our money the quickest, republicans or democrats. They'll probaly tie, and the rest of us will lose.

[jeetkuneduh]

this is the problem wehn a represtative democracy is in the land of un or under imformed public
the amouth of stuff that can happend openly yet be hiddend is scary