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Trivia Tidbit of the Day: Part 570 -- Senator Hutchison's Earmarks.

Not Pretty-

Earmarks, compared to entitlement programs, are a drop in the bucket in the fiscal nightmare of a deficit we currently face. That much needs to be stated up front (.pdf):

Nevertheless, pork is harmful to the conservative movement for a few key reasons:

1. It is strongly correlated (with some causation, as well) with higher overall federal spending. All other spending tends to go up when pork escalates.
2. Pork also subsidizes bigger government at the state and local level. It eliminates the need for states, counties, and cities to set priorities, so they ratchet up spending.
3. Many pork projects lead to criminal corruption at worst and the appearance of it at best. Earmarks are slipped into bills without sunlight, without deliberation or debate, and without a vote on them. By definition, they are secretive and antithetical to open and limited government.

When we examine Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison's earmarking record, we learn that she is the number one porker in all of Texas politics. She is also in the top quartile of all Senate porkers in the country. She justifies her porking as a perfectly legitimate role of Congress and important to her constituents, and she even parted with Texas' Junior Senator John Cornyn and voted against conservative hero Senator Jim DeMint's earmark reform package just one week ago today. Think about it. LAST WEEK she did this.

Citizens Against Government Waste lists some of the earmarks from this year, including:

$3,760,000 for the LBJ Library in Austin.
$195,000 for the Dallas Women's Museum.
$1,960,000 for a trolley in Galveston.
$137,200 for "streetscape" in Beaumont.
$137,200 for a performing arts centre in Temple.
$111,216 for goat research.
$1,843,008 for cotton research.
$219,453 for wool research.
$548,136 for grain sorghum research.

All told, it is a lot of earmarks, and it totals $259,351,654, according to CAGW. That is more than 250 million dollars. That is THIS YEAR alone.

And now she wants to be our Governor? No, thank you.

Previous Trivia Tidbit: Cap & Trade.

Posted by Will Franklin · 9 April 2009 03:47 PM

Comments

Posted by: ZsaZsa at April 9, 2009 04:51 PM