Free Republic

Whichever term you prefer, Sacramento-area members of Congress last week requested more than $1.1 billion worth of them, from $400,000 for a Folsom hospital helipad to $154 million for major Natomas levee improvements. All but one of the region's five representatives posted funding requests on the Web, as required by new congressional rules. The fifth, Rep. Tom McClintock, a Republican whose district stretches from El Dorado County to the Oregon border, did not ask for earmark dollars because he opposes the system. The latest round of requests is for the next fiscal year. Critics have charged that the process is...

The Bee's editorial "Pork has its place" argues that congressional earmarks are all right as long as they're used for beneficial purposes. The Bee advises that I should abandon my opposition to this practice and emulate those congressmen who treat our national treasury like a grab bag for local projects – albeit projects of The Bee's liking. ... It should be no wonder that virtually all of the political corruption cases affecting Congress – including the infamous Jack Abramoff scandal – involve congressional earmarks. The Bee fails to consider that the price for obtaining a "beneficial" earmark for the district...

This morning’s breakfast had two very interesting speakers: climate skeptic Congressman Tom McClintock from California and Canadian author, columnist and environmentalist Lawrence Solomon. Solomon is a founder and managing director of the Energy Probe Research Foundation and is a strong advocate of renewable energy and written a book against urban sprawl. When Congressman McClintock addressed the audience he emphasized that the actual threat of global warming is a big one, but not because of temperature and more so because of what the radical environmentalist movement can do to control the message and hurt the economy. He discussed the detrimental economic...

If you want to fight the good fight against Draconian climate change legislation, catch your elected officials with witnesses around, don’t try to talk privately with them. That was the advice Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., gave while speaking at the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change held by The Heartland Institute in New York on March 9. He encouraged the audience to confront policymakers in public forums rather than one-on-one. “If you’re sitting in their office and you’re talking to them, you’re in exactly the wrong place,” McClintock said. “If you want to communicate with your legislator, don’t write them...

Washington's response to the current recession illustrates one of the fundamental laws of political physics: the more that we spend on our mistakes, the less willing we are to admit them. The conventional wisdom is that if government can "inject" enough money into the economy, it can reverse the recession. Unfortunately, the hard and bitter truth is that government cannot inject a single dollar into the economy that it has not first taken out of that economy. .... True, government takes a dollar from Peter and gives it to Paul, Paul has one dollar more to spend and that dollar...

Despite a ban on nonessential travel, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's top administrative officials charged taxpayers tens of thousands of dollars for airfare, hotel stays and meals with virtually no oversight, according to a published report. Expense reports and calendars for 10 high-ranking staff members from Southern California — including three cabinet members — show many of the expenses were incurred after the governor issued an executive order a year ago requiring state agencies to reduce travel costs due to California's budget crisis, the Los Angeles Times reported on its Web site late Friday. ....Carrie Lopez, the director of the Department of...

I rise again to urge the majority to consider very carefully the damage they are doing to our nation’s economy by passing this unprecedented spending measure. There is still time to heed the warnings from economists across the nation that this bill will do long-term damage to the growth of our nation’s economy for many years to come. This is not mere economic theory: it is the consistent effect every time and everywhere that governments have tried to spend their way to prosperity. History is shouting its warning at us: never has a nation spent its way to prosperity –...

A Policy that Doesn’t Work House Chamber, Washington D.C. February 10, 2009 M. Speaker: Benjamin Franklin warned us that “Passion governs, but she never governs wisely.” As the Congress and the President rush to enact the latest in a long line of mega-spending bills, I think we would be well advised to spend a little more time on the dispassionate math of the matter. The Congressional Budget Office issued a report last week that warns us, as reported by the Washington Times, that the spending bill may “help in the short term but result in so much government debt that...

U.S. Rep. Tom McClintock has been a vociferous opponent in Washington about plans to pump nearly $1 billion into the economy through a new spending bill. But as a newcomer to D.C. politics, the veteran state legislator now serving as 4th District congressman has taken more tentative steps in introducing his own legislation. He did so last month, with introduction of his first bill, to honor former President Ronald Reagan on his Feb. 6 birthday. That date came and went Friday with McClintock’s bill at the committee level. McClintock said he’s co-signed several pieces of high-visibility legislation but used the...

Put 257 eighth-graders in a room with a congressman, tell them to ask questions, and you’ll soon find out what’s on their mind. So it was on Friday, as freshman Republican Tom McClintock – on break from Washington and in the midst of a district-wide meet-and-greet – paid a visit to the students of Olympus Jr. High in Roseville. The conservative legislator held forth on the importance of political involvement and American values – with a heavy dose of Lincoln and de Tocqueville thrown in for good measure. “It’s fun talking to eigth-graders, because they’re studying the American constitution and...

Candidates around the country proved with their latest financial filings that it’s never too early to begin the next campaign — especially if you’re a freshman. Newly sworn-in members of Congress from all over raised money for 2010 before they even took the oath, while others with eyes on potentially bigger prizes, like the Senate, began their quests. Among the top fundraisers for the five-week year-end period were freshman Reps. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), Pete Olson (R-Texas), Walt Minnick (D-Idaho) and Bobby Bright (D-Ala.). All raised $80,000 or more, with McClintock pulling in $120,000, and all could be top House targets...

Newly elected 4th District Congressman Tom McClintock, who is being sworn in today at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., is looking forward to committee appointments and has put together his team for the coming term. The selection process for congressional committee assignments starts tomorrow, McClintock said, and he has requested Natural Resources, Transportation and Infrastructure, and Budget. “I was asked to serve on the Judiciary Committee, which involves immigration policy among other things,” he said Monday. “I have indicated I have no objection to that assignment either.” McClintock said he plans to maintain frequent dialogue with his constituency. “I intend...

An attempt by astronauts to repair a new water recycler designed to convert urine into drinkable water met with mixed results Sunday aboard the International Space Station. Space station skipper Michael Fincke and Endeavour shuttle astronaut Don Pettit removed a set of washer-like vibration dampeners from a centrifuge used to distill water from urine, which engineers hoped would solve the system's early shutdown woes. During recent start-up tests, the recycling system's urine processor shut down after only two hours in action. A separate sweat and wastewater processor has been working more or less as expected. After Sunday's repair attempt, astronauts...

Peyton Elementary Principal Michael Auclaire apologized to students and parents Tuesday afternoon for a "lesson" the previous day in which he told students to don a glove and look inside a soggy bag of human feces and urine. The incident occurred because he and the school's janitorial staff were frustrated by ongoing messes left in a girl's bathroom generally used by fourth- and fifth-graders, Auclaire said. While his intention was to get the kids to understand how inappropriate it was to defecate on the floor or a toilet seat, or to leave a bag of excrement, he said Tuesday that...

Four years and eleven months after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was swept into office in a dramatic recall, the powerful and well-heeled correctional officers' union today will target Schwarzenegger for a recall. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association will begin the process to recall the Republican governor, a spokesman said today, calling the 2003 recall "a mistake." "In the history of bad governors, this is the worst governor we've ever had," said Lance Corcoran, a spokesman for the union. The union is collecting the 65 necessary valid signatures to serve Schwarzenegger a notice-of-intent-to-recall. "This is a man who is a poser....

PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - Police in Port St. Lucie are on the lookout for a cross-dressing man who snatched a 74-year-old woman's purse. As if that weren't odd enough, they're depending on a strange clue. The suspect left behind a condom filled with water he had been using as a fake breast.

Five years ago this month, Arnold Schwarzenegger met with the press for the first time as a candidate for governor. Emerging from a conference with a group of economic advisers at a hotel near the Los Angeles airport, Schwarzenegger declared his opposition to raising taxes to help balance the state budget. The people of California, he said, were already taxed too much. "From the time they get up in the morning and flush the toilet, they're taxed," Schwarzenegger said. "When they go and get a coffee, they're taxed. "They get into their car, they're taxed. They go to the gas...