Ron Paul's $400 Million Earmarks
(Fox News) - Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul — who is campaigning as a critic of congressional overspending — has revealed that he is requesting $400 million worth of earmarks this year.
The Wall Street Journal reports Paul's office says those requests include $8 million for the marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to pay for research into shrimp fishing.
A spokesman says, "Reducing earmarks does not reduce government spending, and it does not prohibit spending upon those things that are earmarked. 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."
The Wall Street Journal reports Paul's office says those requests include $8 million for the marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to pay for research into shrimp fishing.
A spokesman says, "Reducing earmarks does not reduce government spending, and it does not prohibit spending upon those things that are earmarked. 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."
posted by BP News Bureau | 7:32 AM
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A spokesman says, "Reducing earmarks does not reduce government spending, and it does not prohibit spending upon those things that are earmarked. 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."
Huh???
This is obviously a hit piece from the Neo-Cons that run Fox News and the Republican Party.
I think PGB has pretty much 'hit the nail on the head'.
Ron Pual is raising too much money and becoming too popular with the all important independent and swing voters.
I'm with Nature Boy. Huh?
The comment makes no sense. Of course reducing earmarks reduces spending in the long run.
In any case, there is something very fishy (pardon the pun) about this story. I can't see this coming from the man who has cast the single no vote in the entire Congress on dozens of bills because they were unconstitutional in his view. It is a blatant statement of purported facts, so if it is a hit-piece and it isn't true, it is tantamount to libel.
Very curious.
Doing a Google search, it is true. Ron Paul says that since the money is going to be spent anyway, he might as well get some of it for his district. Who would have thought Paul would be in the same earmark club as Sen. Robert Byrd and Sen. Ted Stevens.
That's not actually what he said, or at least not in the quote I read. He said that the earmarks he requested are made on already approved spending. They do not constitute additional spending, like the earmarks requested by Stevens, Pelosi, and others. Furthermore, he will vote against all earmarks, even his own, just as he has in the past.
It is a subtle difference, I know. I guess he could ask for earmarks that don't violate federalism or the constitutional limits on Congressional spending, but I imagine most of the agencies that spend the money violate those limits just by existing.
It seems odd, but I can't honestly say there is much of a difference in the final outcome between what he does and being a complete purist.
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