Republicans claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility, and all have pledged to take no pork. If you believe them, come see me about my wonderful mountain ski resort for sale in Kansas. When it comes to pork, Republican Politicians are liars and hypocrites, saying one thing, but doing the exact opposite. Republicans live on Pork Street.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the Republican leadership’s tether to the Tea Party, flutters the hearts of the government-bashing, budget-slicing faithful with his relentless attacks on runaway federal spending. To Cantor, an $8 billion high-speed rail connecting Las Vegas to Disneyland is wasteful “pork-barrel spending.” The Virginia Republican set up the “You Cut” Web site to demonstrate how easy it is to slash government programs. And he made the Department of Housing and Urban Development the poster child for waste when he disclosed that the agency was paying for housing for Ph.D.s.
But away from the cameras, Cantor sometimes pulls right up to the spending trough, including the very stimulus law he panned in public. Letters obtained by Newsweek show him pressing the Transportation Department to spend nearly $3 billion in stimulus money on a high-speed-rail project—not the one he derided in Nevada, but another in his home state. “Virginia … will demonstrate that this historic investment in rail will create jobs, reduce congestion, spur economic growth and improve our environment,” says a letter he signed with other Virginia members in October 2009, cribbing President Obama’s own argument for the stimulus.
Cantor signed several such letters, including an earlier one seeking rail funds a month after he went on national television attacking the Vegas project. He also signed a letter in October 2009 seeking $60 million to build commercial ships, some likely along Virginia’s coastline. As for his bashing of HUD, until last year he owned as much as $50,000 in preferred stock in a real-estate company that receives federal housing assistance from the department.
As the government showdown over debt continues—the so-called congressional supercommittee negotiating cuts has been floundering for weeks—Newsweek found about five dozen of the most fiscally conservative Republicans, from Tea Party freshmen like Allen West to anti-spending presidential candidates like Rick Perry and Ron Paul, trying to gobble up the very largesse they publicly disown, in the time-honored, budget-busting tradition of bringing home the bacon for local constituents… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Newsweek>
Now this is a small part of an extensive article, and I encourage you to click through for the rest of it. It demonstrates without doubt that Republicans are lying to their constituents, taking credit for bringing home the same projects they opposed.
In my opinion, if a state’s/district’s Senator’s/Representatives oppose spending on legislation, that area should receive none of the funding from it.
10 Responses to “Republicans on Pork Street”
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Sodahead provides a nice list (with a few typos) of 114 (and counting) repubicans who voted against the Stimulus Bill – but had no qualms about taking its money … and crowing about how it helped their districts:
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/114-republicans-hypocrites-block-stimulus—while-taking-credit-for-its-success/question-2071691/
Thanks Nameless!! Excellent!
I have always maintained the exact same thing! It might be a sad problem for the residents, but if the people that represent their State insist on no Fema, no insurance, no improvements on infra structure – hey kindly hold firm and let the feds deny them the services that the gov’t provides – see how their constituents react and perhaps it might hasten change!
At the state level, that is exactly what is happening.
Just another demonstration of how much a Hypocrite Canter and the rest of them are–
Amen Phyllis!
Republican voices from the past ……
Great find, Dawg! Today, Goldwater would be too ‘librul’ for the GOP.
“. . . government showdown over debt continues—. . . Newsweek found about five dozen of the most fiscally conservative Republicans, from Tea Party freshmen like Allen West to anti-spending presidential candidates like Rick Perry and Ron Paul, trying to gobble up the very largesse they publicly disown, in the time-honored, budget-busting tradition of bringing home the bacon for local constituents…And to average Americans, the fiscal hawks’ public bashing of spending they seek privately feels a lot like watching a fitness guru gobble down a milkshake and a Big Mac.”
Here we go again! The “do as I say, not as I do” Republicans are proving that they have no ethics whatsoever. To say that the “funds have already been allocated so I might as well access them” is the height of hypocracy. Obviously these Republicans have no concept of ethics and must feel in danger of their jobs from their constituents so they are trying to spend money that they have chastised the Democrats for trying to spend. Poor little piggies went wee wee wee all the way home! Caught with their fingers in the cookie jar . . . er pork barrel!
From your mouth to God’s ear!