Texas Straight Talk ~ A Weekly Column
Congressman Ron Paul
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March 16, 2009: "Earmarks Don't Add Up"
Earmarks seem to be the hot topic this week, and as a fiscal conservative I am dismayed so many people deliberately distort the earmarking process and grandstand to make political points. It is an easy thing to do with earmarks. It takes a little more time and patience to grasp the reality of what earmarks really are. To be sure, if earmarks were the driving force behind explosive government spending as some have been led to believe, that would be a good reason for all the fuss. The misconception seems to be that members of Congress put together a …
Continues: http://www.house.gov/htbin/blog_inc?...ngdetail.shtml
Recent Videos on Earmarks:
Ron Paul on the Steve Gill Show, March 12, 2009
Visit
http://www.gillreport.com for more. Former Presidential candidate and champion of the Constitution Congressman Ron Paul of Texas joined the program today to discuss, among other things, the misunderstanding many people have about earmarks and the idea that we need more earmarks, not less.
Video (10:00): http://www.campaignforliberty.com/bl...cpg=1#comments
Congressman Ron Paul on Earmarks March 10, 2009
Posted by Matt Hawes on 3/10/09 2:25 PM Campaign for Liberty
On Tuesday, Dr. Paul spoke on the House floor concerning the true nature of earmarks.
Video (5:36): http://www.campaignforliberty.com/bl...cpg=1#comments
Dr. Paul Defends Earmarks on Cavuto March 10, 2009
"This whole thing about 'Earmarks' is totally misunderstood."
Video (4:05): http://www.campaignforliberty.com/bl...cpg=1#comments
Recent Article on Earmarks:
"Earmarks: Much Ado About Nothing"
Source: http://www.campaignforliberty.com/bl...cpg=1#comments
Posted by Matt Hawes on 03/09/09
Over at LewRockwell.com today, Dave Gonigam takes a look at earmarks and asks everyone to take a deep breath and actually consider the issue:
Quote:
We're hearing a lot lately about earmarks - DC-speak for pork-barrel spending. Whether it's the "stimulus" bill signed into law last month, or the $410 billion spending bill that's supposed to tide over Uncle Sam for the rest of fiscal '09, it seems we can't get away from them....
Not so. Earmarks typically make up about 1% of the federal budget. In the spending bill being debated right now, it's a little under 2%....But really, we're talking about a pittance in the big scheme of the federal budget. Slaughter all the earmarks, and it would barely put a dent in runaway spending.
Well actually, it wouldn't even do that.
That's because earmarks come out of a total amount of federal spending that's carved in stone before the earmarks are ever doled out to the lawmakers. In other words, the money's going to get spent anyway.
The only difference is that with earmarks, individual lawmakers get a little bit of say in how it gets spent. Take earmarks out of the equation, and the decisions get made within the executive branch, or at best, among the Congressional leadership - whose primary concern would be rewarding friends and punishing enemies among the back-benchers....
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As Dr. Paul has pointed out in the past:
http://www.ronpaullibrary.org/document.php?id=836
Quote:
Because earmarks are funded from spending levels that have been determined before a single earmark is agreed to, with or without earmarks the spending levels remain the same. Eliminating earmarks designated by Members of Congress would simply transfer the funding decision process to federal bureaucrats rather then elected representatives. In an already flawed system, earmarks can at least allow residents of Congressional districts to have a greater role in allocating federal funds - their tax dollars - than if the money is allocated behind locked doors by bureaucrats. So we can be critical of the abuses in the current system but we shouldn't lose sight of how some reforms may not actually make the system much better.
The real problem... is the size of the federal government and the amount of money we are spending in these appropriations bills....
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Mr. Gonigam reiterates that point in his article today; the earmark battle serves as a convenient distraction from the larger issues. It is just one piece of a much bigger puzzle.
Small government conservatives may be ready to reduce the number of earmarks in a spending bill, but are they ready to reconsider our $1 trillion foreign policy? Or all of the money spent enforcing anti-civil liberties legislation like the Patriot Act? Or the destruction of our dollar by an out of control Federal Reserve?
Read Dave Gonigam's full article here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig9/gonigam4.html