Democrats Request $51.7 Billion In Earmarks To The GOP's $1 Billion

One billion is still a lot, but it has to be said the GOP has greatly curbed, if not completely ended, its appetite for pork.

Byron York notes that the media is presenting this as a bipartisan problem and therefore a betrayal by the GOP. It's not true, at least not as the MFM is claiming.

Press coverage of the budget frenzy on Capitol Hill has suggested that pork-barrel earmark spending is still a bipartisan problem, that after months of self-righteous rhetoric about fiscal discipline, Republicans and Democrats remain equal-opportunity earmarkers.

It's not true. A new analysis by a group of federal-spending watchdogs shows a striking imbalance between the parties when it comes to earmark requests. Democrats remain raging spenders, while Republicans have made enormous strides in cleaning up their act. In the Senate, the GOP made only one-third as many earmark requests as Democrats for 2011, and in the House, Republicans have nearly given up earmarking altogether -- while Democrats roll on.

...

In the 2011 House budget, the groups found that House Democrats requested 18,189 earmarks, which would cost the taxpayers a total of $51.7 billion, while House Republicans requested just 241 earmarks, for a total of $1 billion.

Where did those GOP earmark requests come from? Just four Republican lawmakers: South Carolina Rep. Henry Brown, who did not run for re-election this year; Louisiana Rep. Joseph Cao, who lost his bid for re-election; maverick Texas Rep. Ron Paul; and spending king Rep. Don Young of Alaska. The other Republican members of the House -- 174 of them -- requested a total of zero earmarks.

By the way, a commnenter wrote that Emmanuel Cleaver's $48 billion earmark request for redistributing money to the inner cities was a typo in early reportage -- it's $48 million, not billion. Still.

At Hot Air, Harry Reid is making an odd argument in favor of earmarks. Congress needs to pork up bills, he contends, in order to check the power of the imperial presidency of Barack Obama.

The White House, he claims, is trying to "steal power" from Congress.

See, he's defending the Constitution.

posted by Ace at 11:08 AM

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