Ron Paul is perfectly willing to use the Constitution as toilet paper when it benefits his buds in the shrimp industry.
Huh? Can you
prove the House voted for a single earmark, shrimp or otherwise, from the $400 million in earmarks that Ron Paul submitted?
BTW, they investigated a few days back and reported that earmarks for Pelosi/Hoyer/Murtha were in the range of $25-$40 million passed by the House. Of course, they have to still get through reconciliation but since they're party leaders that is likely to happen.
Allowing his constituents to request such a vast and ridiculous amount of earmarks, weeding only a few of the laughable ones, is Ron Paul's way of defeating them. But he's not throwing any "poison pills" at them; he lets their own greed defeat them. They ask for everything, rarely get anything. But the bigger items for highways and bridges are noted in the legislation and will likely be eventually funded by the DoT anyway. Things like the Galveston causeway and bridge repairs on federal highways in the district.
Unlike many others in Congress, Ron Paul presents his earmarks list. (BTW, I think Obama is the only other candidate in the race who released his.) You can find RP's earmark list in PDF format right at his website. Or you can
download it directly from CNN. Read it. Maybe you'll learn something.
There are
two shrimp projects. One for research (57) and one for wild shrimp marketing (65). Page one contains an additional request for the testing of all seafood for antibiotic contamination so you could count it as shrimp-related! Yahoo.
But the porkiest of the lot is on page 21, the Edna theater renovation as a foul lair of the local Chamber of Commerce (earmark from Texas DoT budget). Now, some or many or all of the other TX DoT project may be funded as earmarks or simply funded by the DoT. But this is just a bunch of porkers with their fist out to the government. And Ron Paul has exposed their little scheme and made it part of the congressional record.
One gets tired of doing the legwork for you folks. It's not like this stuff is secret, not with Ron Paul. He puts it all out there for you to read and inspect. He like open government. Ron Paul has transparency, always has. He doesn't have to have a fake transparency law (like the Dims just passed) to be honest with his constituents about what he does. You realize, this is part of what keeps getting him elected. Honesty is a pretty rare quality in candidates of either party.