Posted on 03/24/2014 10:54:23 AM PDT by The Old Hoosier
When he was still a member of the U.S. House, Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., spent years forcing his colleagues to vote on dozens and dozens of amendments stripping earmarks -- that is, special funding provisions for individual projects -- out of appropriations bills. He nearly always failed.
It was a long, lonely fight that infuriated many of his colleagues, but Flake eventually won. His crusade shamed the Republican leadership into banning earmarks in 2011, after they took control of the U.S. House of Representatives. That ban remains in place today.
It all seems like a distant memory now. But the legacy of that fight lives on this year in Idaho's Second Congressional District primary. Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, is facing a Club for Growth-backed primary challenge. Simpson became a target in part because of his longstanding support for earmarks under the old guard. And in fact, Simpson argues for the restoration of earmarks to this day, offering the most respectable conservative argument in their favor: They give more power to Congress (and less to bureaucrats) over spending.
The counterargument, of course, is that earmarks facilitate horse-trading for bad laws (remember the special Nebraska and Louisiana provisions that helped get Obamacare through) and wasteful projects designed chiefly to help members win re-election.
Simpson has never been shy with his opinion that the January 2011 ban on earmarks was a mistake. At that time, Simpson told The Hill
: “I don’t find a problem with me deciding that I want some of the money in the state and tribal assistance grants going to help a community in Idaho rebuild their water system...I can make that determination because I know that district better than somebody from the EPA.”
Speaking last week in Boise, Simpson was asked about earmarks. Here was his answer, which gives a bit of the history behind earmarking, and he predicted that earmarks would be back soon:
[Video at Link]
This has prompted his primary opponent, Idaho Falls attorney Bryan Smith, to release a video that highlights his comments. But the most interesting part of the video is at the end, where it highlights all of those old votes Simpson took against various Flake amendments.
[Video at Link]
And so Flake's legacy in the House lives on in this campaign. Who knew we'd be discussing a vote to maintain a $150,000 earmark for an aquarium in South Carolina, $100,000 for a prisons museum in Kansas, and $200,000 for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service in New York City five or six years after the fact?...
Mitt Romney is backing Simpson. And I think Simpson is a (several bad words).
Prolly go with Smith. If I go at all.
Simpson is pro amnesty in the clueless not ruthless kind of way.
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