Good God, that was easy and sickeningly so.
Let's go down and do some extracts.
Hastert Directs Millions to Birthplace
Earmarked Money Skirts Procedures
-----------------------------------------Hastert has earmarked $24 million in grants for Aurora-based nonprofit groups since becoming speaker in 1999, using an obscure section of the big federal spending bills passed each year.
Hasterts Earmarks: Pork or Politics?
former Speaker Hastert in land deal scandal that questions legitimacy of federal funding.
-----------------------------In June, Speaker of the House Dennis J. Hastert (R-Ill.) made headlines twice. At the start of the month, he became the longest-serving Republican Speaker in history. But at month’s end, he was answering questions about a land deal that netted him $1.8 million. The land he’d sold was located five miles from a highway for which he’d earmarked $207 million.
That funding was a small part of a $286 billion transportation measure that contained more earmarks than any federal transportation bill to date. When the bill was in final committee, Hastert placed in two earmarks to fund the Prairie Parkway—a north-south connector west of Chicago that runs through fast-growing Kendall County, which is in Hastert’s district.
Nearly 14,000 Pork Projects in Federal Budget this Year
Written By: Chris Edwards
Published In: Budget & Tax News
Publication Date: October 1, 2005
-------------------"Pork" spending by Congress has exploded in recent years. The $286 billion highway bill passed in July was bloated with 6,371 special projects inserted by members of Congress for their states and districts. Such projects are often of dubious value or for purposes that are the responsibility of local governments and the private sector.
Pork is only one type of waste in the budget, but it undermines efforts to restrain federal spending in general.
Republicans Lead Pork Explosion
The number of federal pork projects increased from fewer than 2,000 annually in the mid-1990s to almost 14,000 in 2005, as measured by Citizens Against Government Waste. Other data indicate the number of federal "earmarks" increased from 4,155 in 1994 to 15,584 in 2005.
and the beat goes on and on.
have you seen hastert? he's never turned down a plate of pork.
What's Hastert doing these days?
Pelosi?
Yeah.
And, for the record, Senator McCain doesn't do earmarks...
A Republican piece of did something, so that makes it okay for the leading Democratic piece of to do it too, even though she said if Americans gave Democrats control of Congress she would stop it. But it's still evil that the Republican did it, and not a big deal the Democrat did it.
[/liberal thought process]
Correct, with one little exception:
John McCain says he is against earmarks and has promised that as president he would "veto every bill with earmarks" that came across his desk. [CQ, 4/15/08]. He also claims to have "been a very strong proponent to the State of Israel." [Haaretz.com, 2/3/2008]
But John McCain has a problem. Aid to Israel is an earmark. As reported by thinkprogress.org, "congressional directives specifying spending amounts that are the same as shown in the Administration's illustrative listing for country distributions also are regarded as earmarks. Annual earmarks for economic and military aid to Israel and Egypt are examples of such directives." [http://thinkprogress.org/2008/04/16/mccain-aid-israel/]
Sounds like on earmarks McCain isn't talking so straight.
Aid to Israel Comes in the Form of Earmarks. According to the blog ThinkProgress, "In a conference call with reporters yesterday, McCain economic adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin said that McCain's plan to eliminate earmarks uses the Congressional Research Service's (CRS) definition of the term. According to an analysis by Center for American Progress Senior Fellow Scott Lilly ( http://www.americanprogress.org/experts/LillyScott.html ), that CRS report identifies $52 billion per year which qualifies as earmark spending. The problem is that the CRS -- the group Holtz-Eakin cited as the basis for McCain's earmark elimination plan -- says that U.S. aid to Israel is considered an earmark ( http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/m012606.pdf#page=19 )…" [thinkprogress.org, 4/16/08]
Wrong. If a Republican piece of does something that doesn't make it ok for a Democratic piece of to do it.
As I said before, I am still cheesed at the Democrats in Congress.
A) I don't think those are earmarks he's tacked on to legislation and B) he's not president yet.
Perhaps, as president, he'll work to move earmarks that fund our foreign aid to Israel out of the earmarks and into the bill proper.
So, in a sense, you're right...is a little exception. One that I don't think qualifies him as a hypocrite on the matter.
somewhere you forgot that this thread is about hastert.
And, why is Hastert relevant? He's not Speaker of the House.
this thread was a response to the pelosi thread = they all suck, including hastert. you had to press it toward the future by sighting mccain. you're winding down like an old clock yoni.
With respect to earmarks and pork, McCain doesn't suck. And, he's not just the future, he's been in Congress longer than Pelosi.
Dwelling on Hastert is like ing about the 2000 elect...oh, I see.
I happen to agree. That bit was a bit dug up from the DNC website, and, in my opinion, a bit unfair, although factually accurate.
He was, just as Gingrich was.
Hastert was speaker from Jan 2001 though Jan 2007.
Says they guy who still es about the Clinton presidency.
Pork to Israel? That's just not kosher.
Only with respect to there being a possibility of another Clinton presidency. I don't think there's much chance of there being another Hastert or Gingrich speakership.
Thank God for small miracles.
I don't see there being much chance of a Republican speaker for at least a decade or so.
If the Dems actually manage to clean up after Bush's mess, in a plausibly believable way, that might be the last Republican speakership for the better part of a quarter century.
We'll see.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
