Don’t Get Rid of Earmarks

NYT ^ | 8/24/07 | RAHM EMANUEL

[ZGuy]

DEMOCRATS made earmark reform a campaign issue in 2006 — and a reality in 2007 — because earmarks were at the heart of corruption scandals in Washington. Democrats never promised to eliminate earmarks.

Putting all earmarks in the same boat, as critics often do, distorts the debate and does a disservice to the public. Not all earmarks are equal.

We pledged to clean up the abuses in the earmark process, and we kept that promise.

Our reforms do not deserve a kick in the pants. To ignore our reforms as if they never occurred and to criticize us for not ending a practice we never pledged to end is disingenuous.

Some members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, eschew earmarks. That is their right. But most members believe it is their prerogative and their duty to channel federal resources to important public purposes.

Earmarks I’ve championed include money for after-school programs, computers for police patrol cars, master teacher training programs and a children’s hospital research facility. I make no apologies for these earmarks, which serve important public purposes. I’m happy to defend them in the well of the House or against attacks from campaign opponents.

I happen to believe that I know more about the needs of the people I represent than some bureaucrat in Washington, an ideologue in the White House, or worse, a bureaucrat with orders from a White House ideologue. But to suggest, as some news reports have, that the earmark process under the new Democratic Congress is worse than before is wrong, unsubstantiated and cynical.

In the space of a few months, the new Democratic Congress has taken earmarks out of the shadows. We have preserved Congress’s power of the purse.

Rahm Emanuel, a representative from Illinois, is chairman of the House Democratic Caucus.

[vetsvette]

Okay, let’s see if I got this right Rahm:

Republican earmarks = bad

Democrat earmarks = good

I don’t know why I didn’t figure this out on my own.

[Bommer]

In the space of a few months, the new Democratic Congress has taken earmarks out of the shadows. We have preserved Congress’s power of the purse.

Now if we could just take those b!tches credit cards away!

[Lazamataz]

When a Republican goes to church quietly, it's a felony.

When a Democrat chain-saws a 5 year old girl, it's a public service.

AND DON'T YOU ****ING FORGET IT.

Signed, Rahm Emmanual

[BARLF]

Brings to mind,”Stroke of the pen, law of the land.”