Posted on 12/29/2010 11:39:00 AM PST by katiedidit1
Members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus may tout their commitment to cutting government spending now, but they used the 111th Congress to request hundreds of earmarks that, taken cumulatively, added more than $1 billion to the federal budget.
[ For complete coverage of politics and policy, go to Yahoo! Politics ]
According to a Hotline review of records compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste, the 52 members of the caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010, the last year for which records are available.
"It's disturbing to see the Tea Party Caucus requested that much in earmarks. This is their time to put up or shut up, to be blunt," said David Williams, vice president for policy at Citizens Against Government Waste. "There's going to be a huge backlash if they continue to request earmarks."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_exclusive/20101202/pl_yblog_exclusive/anti-earmark-tea-party-caucus-takes-1-billion-in-earmarks
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Glad that CAGW is watching our reps. We need to keep a close eye on them too.
This is why we are doomed. Welcome to the Dark ages.
Was stunned to hear about this on Fox news. Decided to check it out and now I am angry. There is a list of the 52 on the CAGW site
I smell BS.. No tea part members that I know of were elected the the “111th congress” I can’t see how ‘earmark requests’ (routinely denied) can be attributed to anyone in the ‘tea party’...
Beware taking the article at face value. I believe there was objective reporting that the so-called earmarks predated the Tea Party and were stuck in the bill at the 11th hour by Pelosi for the express purpose of undermining these reps with the thousand plus page can’t-possibly-read-it bill. The question to ask is were these reps given the opportunity to withdraw their old requests or was this to be railroaded through? NOTHING done during the lame duck session should be taken with less than a car-sized grain of salt.
A billion?! That’s chump change...
> A quick summary of FY2011 earmark requests:
>
> HOUSE
> dems- 18,189 earmarks $51.7 billion
> pubs- 241 earmarks $1 billion
>
> SENATE
> dems- 15,000 earmarks $55 billion
> pubs- 5,300 earmarks $22 billion
>
> TOTAL
> dems- 33,189 earmarks $106.7 billion
> pubs- 5,541 earmarks $23 billion
Do some research..it is true. Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) takes the prize as the tea partier with his name on the most earmarks. Rehberg’s office requested funding for 88 projects, either solely or by co-signing earmark requests with Sens. Max Baucus (D) and Jon Tester (D), at a cost of $100,514,200. On his own, Rehberg requested 20 earmarks valued at more than $9.6 million.
Big deal.
99% of politicians who ran on the idea they are “conservative” voted for more tax cuts without spending cuts.
Yeah, Yahoo gets their news from AP. You have to start from the assumption that their wrong until proven otherwise.
“I smell BS..”
Exactly! Something really stinks about this report. I’ll bet if you get to the root of the matter, the libs are in up to their necks getting this report out there to undermine the TP movement.
I’m a little more concered about the 14 Trillion in debt than I am about a billion in earmarks. IF a congressperson can take a minimal amount of earmarks to get re-elected and massively hack away at the bigger problem at the same time, that will work for now. A big IF, of course, but we have to focus on priorities...
Bachmann and 13 of her Tea Party Caucus colleagues did not request any earmarks in the last Fiscal Year, according to CAGW’s annual Congressional Pig Book. But others have requested millions of dollars in special projects.
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), for one, attached his name to 69 earmarks in the last fiscal year, for a total of $78,263,000. The 41 earmarks Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) requested were worth $65,395,000. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) wanted $63,400,000 for 39 special projects, and Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) wanted $93,980,000 set aside for 47 projects.
Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) takes the prize as the Tea Partier with his name on the most earmarks. Rehberg’s office requested funding for 88 projects, either solely or by co-signing earmarks requests with Sens. Max Baucus (D) and Jon Tester (D), at a cost of $100,514,200. On his own, Rehberg requested 20 earmarks valued at more than $9.6 million.
More than one member can sign onto an earmark. Still, there are 29 caucus members who requested on their own or joined requests for more than $10 million in earmark funding, and seven who wanted more than $50 million in funding.
Ummm, they haven’t even had a chance to vote on anything yet.
Better check your facts (or stop making them up)
Seems Denny Rehberg had all earmark requests withdrawn back as far as 2/1/10, and then his name suddenly reappears on a massive earmark list he never authorized. CAGW, doesn’t even bother to check their facts either.
It was also on Fox News and on the Citizens Against Govt Waste site. They are NOT liberals. Face the facts and check the votes. Have to hold our officials accountable
Needs to be shouted.
Even the MSM employee who typed in the report admitted "Bachmann and 13 of her Tea Party Caucus colleagues did not request any earmarks in the last Fiscal Year, according to CAGW's annual Congressional Pig Book. But others have requested millions of dollars in special projects."
.. well those others are the ones the Tea Party people were complaining about leading up to Election 2010 -- it seems to me.
Denny Rehberg did vote for earmakrs for Montana..you can check it out on project vote smart. CAGW does in depth research on facts. Do you think Fox news made this up too?
Anyone else notice CAGW gets a substantial amount of funding through ‘media matters’ - another George Soros/Hillary Clinton enterprise?
They have the credibility of snopes just about now.
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