http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv0YH7tikY8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_Fsv7iwZRc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtXjm77Wo4k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1bohDo_NDs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDjpsZkJ0Tw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWfIhFhelm8
Ron Paul’s Earmarks
August 6, 2007; Page A12
Texas Congressman Ron Paul — libertarian gadfly and current Republican Presidential hopeful — has made a name for himself as a critic of overspending. But it seems even he can’t resist the political allure of earmarks.
After reporters started asking questions, the Congressman disclosed his requests this year for about $400 million worth of federal funding for no fewer than 65 earmarks. They include such urgent national wartime priorities as an $8 million request for the marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to fund shrimp-fishing research.
When we called Mr. Paul’s office for an explanation, his spokesperson offered up something worthy of pork legends Tom DeLay or Senator Robert C. Byrd: “Reducing earmarks does not reduce government spending, and it does not prohibit spending upon those things that are earmarked,” the spokesman said. “What people who push earmark reform are doing is they are particularly misleading the public — and I have to presume it’s not by accident.”
On the other hand, good libertarians should want to start cutting somewhere. The problem with earmarking is that each year the habit grows by leaps and bounds so that it now represents real money. It is also a gateway to political corruption — a la Duke Cunningham, and other Congressmen currently under investigation for trading favors for earmarks.
Mr. Paul is one of Congress’s better fiscal conservatives. So the fact that even he feels obliged to grab multiple earmarks is all the more reason to keep fighting for transparency in the earmark process, as well as for the line-item veto, which would give Presidents a chance to impose some spending discipline from outside Congress.
All Congressmen gives money back to their district. It's what they do.
But Paul has led the fight to limit the federal government overall so states would have more money to take care of these problems themselves. You know, so Congressmen wouldn't have to fight over table scraps to give back to their districts.
Not sure of the technicalities with ‘earmarks’ and how they are applied/granted etc. but he has always said that as long as they are part of the legislative strategy—he will forward any constitutient request without favor or prejudice.
It is not inconsistent with a libertarian philosophy to allow his voters access to the same trough from which others feed.
How do you suppose he's going to vote on them?