Speaker Pelosi Piles Personal Pork Projects onto the Back of Our Troops & Veterans
Boehner: "We Shouldn't Play These Political Games on the Backs of our Veterans and our Soldiers"
Washington,
Nov 6, 2007 -
Last year, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told the Wall Street Journal in a major interview just months before the 2006 election that if she were to become Speaker, earmarks might become a thing of the past:
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“Personally, myself, I’d get rid of all of them… None of them is worth the skepticism, the cynicism the public has…and the fiscal irresponsibility of it.” |
How times have changed. Today, Speaker Pelosi and her Majority colleagues are stuffing billions in unrelated pork-barrel spending – a whopping 2,200 earmarks in all – into unrelated legislation that funds critical benefits for our troops and veterans like housing and health care.
What kind of pork-barrel spending? Well, in the Speaker’s case, she’s using our troops and veterans as leverage to extract more than $4.5 million from taxpayers for a variety of pork projects in her district, including $300,000 for an “Exploratorium” in her congressional district.
What does an Exploratorium – or is it a “Porkatorium”? – have to do with our men and women in uniform? You’d have to ask the Speaker on that one.
You’d also have to ask her Majority colleagues what these pork projects have to do with benefits for our troops and veterans:
· $1 million in taxpayer dollars requested by Sens. Harry Reid (D-NV), Robert Byrd (D-WV), Tim Johnson (D-SD), and Tom Harkin (D-IA) for the Thomas Daschle Center for Public Service and Representative Democracy in Brookings, South Dakota. This earmark was “airdropped” into the conference report without any debate or public scrutiny in the House or Senate.
· $100,000 in taxpayer dollars requested by Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA) for O’Neill Sea Odyssey, an “educational” program conducted “on board a 65-foot catamaran sailing Monterey Bay.”
· $100,000 in taxpayer dollars requested by Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) and Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) for “development of a Portuguese and Lusophone Studies Program” at Rhode Island College.
· $1 million in taxpayer dollars requested by Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-AR) and Mark Pryor (D-AR) for the Clinton School of Public Service at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock.
· $3.2 billion in taxpayer dollars for 56 programs in the Departments of Education, Labor, and Health and Human Services that the President’s Budget proposed to terminate, such as $9 million for an Exchanges with Historic Whaling and Trading Partners Program.
· $1.5 million in taxpayer dollars requested by Sen. Tom Harkin (D-IA) for the Working for America Institute, a union-based training program, even though Democrats plan to slash millions from the Department of Labor’s Office of Labor Management Standards, an office dedicated to promoting transparency through audits and review of unions’ financial records.
For weeks on end, Republicans have strongly opposed asking our men and women in uniform to carry billions in unrelated pork on their backs and have urged the Majority to send President Bush a clean veterans and troops funding bill. House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) reiterated the Republican position earlier today in a speech on the House floor:
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“This is one of the most cynical and most political things I’ve seen in the 17 years that I’ve been here in Congress… We shouldn’t play these political games on the backs of our veterans and our soldiers. I think that we should split this bill and do it the right way and show our veterans on Veteran’s Day that we really do appreciate their sacrifice and their service.” (VIDEO) |
More than a month ago, House Republican leaders sent a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) urging her to appoint conferees who can finish work on the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill. Democratic leaders have not only delayed the bill, but have gone so far as to vote against six Republican proposals (on October 23, 24, 25, 30, 31, and November 1) to complete work on the measure.
Instead, Speaker Pelosi and her allies have spent the last several weeks burying billions in worthless pork in the troops and veterans funding bill. Is this any way to honor our men and women in uniform?
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