Shocked – Shocked to Find Earmarking in This Congress!

Funny, how you try and slant the artilcle to show Murtha in the only one in congress who does earmarks. Get a life.

just another cheating, hypocritical democrat. shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Time for this Tammany Hall scalawag to stop polluting our Congress. Be gone, you crook!

Sandra,
I totally agree with you but the libs LOVE to make earmarks a republican thing. Especially on theses blogs. But when it’s a Dem getting run over the coals, there nowhere to be found. Rep. and Dems are just the other wing to the same bird

The earmarking and the other corrupt practices in Congress are bipartisan. When push comes to shove, almost all of them belong to one party – the party of the almighty dollar. Making this into a partisan issue is the best way to make sure it never stops, which is why the Dems and the GOP, when they are forced to discuss it at all, always try to make it into a partisan issue.

Line Item Veto is the only way to stop all earmarks. Constitiutional amendment to balance the budget has no chance of passing.
Term limits for these scumbags is also another possibility, but it has to pass the congress and senate. The lawmakers will not let that happen either.
We as voters should deprive them re-elections. I see no other solution.
I would love to help with a grassroot organization to stop wasteful spending.

A system of misery……

Writing to your senators and/or representatives does work, albeit, not as often as it should. Now as for term-limits, the reason most politicians do not want them is because of the length of time it takes a new senator or representative to learn how the “system” actually works. A better solution would be to make their aides’ position an actual GS (federal service) job rather than an appointed one; senators and representatives are assigned aides from a pool of experienced professional aides. As for “pork”, Americans love pork, it’s what we expect from our senators and representatives in our neck-of-the-woods, of course, we don’t want to share the bacon with anyone else. This being said, there’s nothing wrong with a little “pork”, the problem lies in the fact that instead of “it” being a few chops, it winds up being the whole hog! A representative or senator wants to build a much-needed new road in his or her district or state; however, instead of the road costing taxpayers 20 million dollars it winds up costing us 60 million dollars. Why you ask, well, the truth of the matter is that the contract for the work usually winds up going to contactor(s) who spent considerable sums of money to help elect that particular representative or senator, or to one who wields considerable influence within their respective district or state.
Obviously I’ve oversimplified the problem a bit, in fact, it’s far more convoluted than that, there are multiple factors that takes that same 20 million dollar road and turns it into the “Bacon Highway”; all courtesy of a federal funding system designed by politicians to make sure that “them that got us here gets taken care of first”, as well as the obligatory minority cut! Not that I have a problem with the letter if they’re qualified to handle the job, but I have a huge problem with the former; we, the taxpayers, are paying for “their” political contributions, and herein lies the “REAL” problem… campaign financing! If we want to hold politicians accountable, then we have to set REAL limits on the amount of money they receive, but more importantly, where they receive it from; of course, that’s not likely to happen in this millennium! Both parties have been crying about campaign finance reform for decades, aside from a lot of talk, neither side has done anything to fix the problem, not really; neither side truly wants any meaningful reform, after all, how else would they be able to raise a couple of hundred million dollars for a senate race… now there’s the insanity, and the REAL problem!
Let’s face it, it takes money to get elected to office, so what we’re plain stuck with candidates who are able to get the “love” they need from their party, political action committees (PAC’s), special interests groups, or, my favorite, folks (industries and corporations) who funnel large amounts of bucks through the aforementioned; no “love”, no chance, that is, unless you have REALLYYYY deep pockets to pay for your own campaign. My point is this, I believe there are a lot of good people out there who might decide to run for public office if they new they stood even half a chance at being elected; perhaps even some of the past and present candidates/politicians started out that way to begin with, that is, until they found out what it really takes to get elected… a lot of dollars with a whole lot of favors/considerations attached! If we want to make our politicians accountable for what they do in office, then we have to take the control away from industries, corporations, PAC’s, and special interest groups; we have to completely eliminate the influence they have over politicians by way of money. Most of these groups represent a very small fraction of the voting block if you take a serious look at their numbers, however, in contrast, they account for a majority of the funds candidates receive for their campaigns… no love, NO CHANCE!

So Murtha getting cash for his businesses in his district is a horrible horrible bad thing, then what is the Republican Bridge to Nowhere? is that legit? – a 900 million dollar construct for 50 island natives that dont often leave for the mainland anyway? oh thats right, the Criminal right wing republicans have friends and relatives they gave property to on those islands now zoned for development so they can cash in on freebies and big time profits.
out of the pockets of the rest of the country’s taxpayers.
nice personal enrichment schemes.
Gee, if only MUrtha would try to get funding for some Highway in the middle of nowhere leading directly to property he owns that hes building construction projects on for development, THEN you could compare his antics to the Republicans.

TERM LIMITS……..
I’d vote for that!