For the record, I have nothing against Kyl’s earmark. It isn’t really pork, because the federal government was committed to pay those funds to that tribe anyway. If I had the power to stop it, I wouldn’t. However, the earmark itself is not what makes this a big deal.
Senate Republicans’ ban on earmarks – money included in a bill by a lawmaker to benefit a home-state project or interest – was short-lived.
Only three days after GOP senators and senators-elect renounced earmarks, Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, the No. 2 Senate Republican, got himself a whopping $200 million to settle an Arizona Indian tribe’s water rights claim against the government.
Kyl slipped the measure into a larger bill sought by President Barack Obama and passed by the Senate on Friday to settle claims by black farmers and American Indians against the federal government. Kyl’s office insists the measure is not an earmark, and the House didn’t deem it one when it considered a version earlier this year.
But it meets the know-it-when-you-see-it test, critics say. Under Senate rules, an earmark is a spending item inserted “primarily at the request of a senator” that goes “to an entity, or (is) targeted to a specific state.”… [emphasis added]
Inserted from <Washington Post>
This a big deal, because Republicans are pretending that they are actually trying to do something about the economy, when they are not. Then they lack the integrity fo follow through on their own pretense. Keith Olbermann and David Weigel fill in the details.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Kyl and his ilk serve only to transfer wealth upward and promote hatred.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.