Earmarks, Sorry, Legislatively Directed Spending

Once again, in the spirit of bipartisanship, our legislators steal from us. This is just one section, DHS, of this years appropriations.
Isn't this supposed to be the Congress that will set a new precedent for transparency and integrity?
Seems like business as usual to me.
Outfits like CREW and TCS are working hard to expose this information. I wish I could vote for them, instead of Republican & Democrat thieves.
One item not in this part of the report is a couple of billion dollars to reimburse the cities that will host the '08 DNC & RNC conventions. The two parties don't even bother to pay their own bills anymore. They aren't actually gov't agencies, after all.
Courtesy of Tax Payers for Common Sense.

TCS ANALYSIS OF FY08 SENATE
HOMELAND SECURITY
APPROPRIATIONS BILL

Washington, D.C. - The Senate FY08 Homeland Security Appropriations bill contains $37.6 billion in funding, $2.3 billion more than the President’s request, and $2.8 billion more than 2007 appropriation.

Some of the bill’s highlights:

Earmarks

Unlike its House counterparts, the Senate discloses the requesting member of most earmarks in the legislation. But its disclosure is far from perfect.While the earmarks are listed in the report, you have to look real close because the type is small and they are scattered far and wide throughout the report. In 137 pages of the report, there are 24 earmarks, including two doozies not disclosed as earmarks.

All told, twenty Senators receive Department of Homeland Security earmarks. As usual, members on the Committee were the big winners, as only five members not on the Committee receive earmarks (Sens. Cantwell (D-WA), Corker (R-TN), Cornyn (R-TX), Kennedy (D-MA) and Kerry (D-MA)), and only two of these don’t have fellow home state Senators pulling weight for them on Committee.

Sens. Domenici (R-NM) and Shelby (R-AL) both receive three earmarks apiece and Sens. Cochran (R-MS), Hutchison (R-TX) and Murray (D-WA) each get a pair.

But wait, there’s more. TCS found two undisclosed earmarks – one for the U.S. Coast Guard Operations System Center in Kearneysville, WV and one that, in part, relocates Immigration and Customs Enforcement data centers to Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. So, one undisclosed earmark goes to the home state of the Chairman of Appropriations Robert Byrd (D-WV) and the other goes to the home state of the Ranking Member of the Committee Thad Cochran (R-MS).

The total cost of all the earmarks is more than $396.6 million. We’re not sure how much more, because one earmark, for Sen. Inouye (D-HI) just stipulates that Customs should hire temporary and part-time pest inspectors in Hawaii.
[...]
The Truman-Hobbs Act (1940) bridge program remains in good health after six earmarks were added to the tune of $16 million to alter bridges that interfere with navigation. The bridges are in Illinois (Sen. Durbin (D)), Alabama (Sen. Shelby (R)), Iowa (Sen. Harkin (D)), Massachusetts (Sens. Kennedy and Kerry (both D)), Wisconsin (Sen. Kohl (D)), and Texas (Sen. Hutchison (R)).
[...]
Conclusion

In previous years, there had been a moratorium on earmarks in the Homeland Security Appropriations bill – which was never perfect – but the moratorium seems to be relevant only if you are not on the appropriations committee. And in the beginning of a disturbing trend similar to the Department of Defense appropriations bill, many of the earmarks are popping up in the Research and Development, Training, and Services title of the bill. The appetite for R&D earmarks is nearly limitless, so we are likely watching the beginning of the slippery slope to more earmarks that direct more of our tax dollars for political gain instead of for protecting our country.

You just can't make this stuff up.
Next time a candidate, any candidate, promises tax breaks, remember this.
We're broke, there can only be tax increases to pay for the correct spending, let alone all the earmarks. Yes, Madame Speaker, no matter what you tell us to call them, they are still porky earmarks.

Submit To Propeller
Tweet