Our Leaders Have No Shame

Just when we thought congressional earmarks were becoming an abomination, after a presidential campaign that led us to believe that pork spending would be abolished soon, at a time when Americans are facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, last week the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $410 billion omnibus spending bill that included nearly $8 billion in porky pet projects.

They have no shame — Democrats and Republicans. All they care about is self-preservation. As long as they can take federal dollars to their home districts and they can tell their constituents that they are bringing home the bacon, the interests of the nation always will come second.

How else can anyone justify more than 8,500 pet projects to be funded by this bill? That's based on an analysis of the bill by Taxpayers for Common Sense, the watchdog group that concluded that these earmarks totaled $7.7 billion.

But is it in the nation's best interest to be wasting borrowed money? Is this the right time to be spending millions to research honeybees in Texas, asparagus in Washington state, blueberries in Georgia, crickets in Utah, rodents in Hawaii, or wool in Montana, Texas and Wyoming? Is this the right time to spend $1.8 million to study "swine odor and manure management" in Iowa, or is there a stronger stench coming from Capitol Hill that needs more immediate attention?

The House vote, 245-178, came only a week after President Barack Obama signed the $787 billion stimulus package into law, one of the largest spending bills in U.S. history, and only two days after he held a White House forum with congressional leaders to begin promoting fiscal restraint.

What a joke! If it weren't so sad, it probably would be very funny!

Amazingly, although many Republicans voted against the bill and GOP leaders spoke out against it, about 40 percent of the pork reportedly was requested by Republicans.

Remember how Democrats kept claiming that they included no earmarks in the stimulus package although they really did? Well, this time, neither Democrats nor Republicans are hiding it. And this is not a stimulus bill. This legislation, meant to keep the federal government operating through September, not only includes the $7.7 billion in earmarks but also increases federal spending by $31 billion more than was spent in the most recent fiscal year. At a time when they are telling the American people to be frugal, these hypocrites are spending our money as if there were no "mañana."

Amazingly, some of them still are trying to justify this kind of reckless, wasteful spending, arguing that the earmarks represent only a small percentage of the $410 billion as if $7.7 billion were chump change!

Democrats say that because 40 percent of the earmarks belong to Republicans, somehow their 60 percent is justifiable. Republicans think that because many of them voted against the bill in the end, we should ignore the hypocrisy of those who asked for pork in the first place.

Inside the Washington Beltway, our leaders have been throwing so many billions of dollars around — as if they were playing with "Monopoly" money — that they have lost appreciation for the value of our money.

Some legislators argue that these pet projects should not be considered "wasteful spending," because they will fund programs that have some merit.

But even if that were true, at this time, they still would have to be considered "unnecessary spending." If we had a budget surplus, perhaps some of these expenses would be justifiable. But now?

Now they are obscene!

Yet President Obama, who pledged to reduce earmark spending, especially while campaigning against pork-fighting Sen. John McCain, now is getting ready to sign this extremely wasteful bill.

And the president's excuse for condoning the pork he pledged to fight? White House press secretary Robert Gibbs simply calls it "last year's business."

Given that the bill's earmarks were introduced last year, at the White House press briefing Monday, Gibbs said, "The president is going to draw some very clear lines about what's going to happen (with earmarks) going forward," but he implied that we are going to have to live with the ones that were introduced before Obama became president.

Why? Reporters wanted to know. "There was a lot of other leftover business that the president has reversed," one reporter noted. Seeing as Obama claims to be against earmarks, "Why not throw down the gauntlet on this one?" another reporter asked.

Yet Gibbs, representing the president who promised so much change, insisted that "old business" is a valid excuse.

Never mind the fact that the bill includes earmarks requested by people who are now high-ranking members of the Obama administration. Vice President Joe Biden, a former senator from Delaware, sought $750,000 for the University of Delaware, and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a former congressman from Illinois, requested $900,000 for a Chicago planetarium.

You would think that the president would ask his own people to lead by example and demonstrate the kind of fiscal responsibility that he has been preaching. You would think he would ask them to withdraw their earmarks from the bill, right? Wrong! Administration officials still are dismissing it as last year's "leftover business" — as if it were George W. Bush, not Obama, who is going to sign the bill.

If this is how Obama plans to gain credibility on fiscal restraint, he never will get it, and we are all in trouble.

"If it sounds like I'm angry, Mr. President, it's because I am," McCain said when the Senate debated the bill Monday. "The American people today want the Congress to act in a fiscally responsible manner, and they don't want us to continue this corrupting practice (of unnecessary spending). We're giving (the American people) a slap in the face, Mr. President. … So much for the promise of change."

Passage of this bill, with this much pork at this time in history, is an insult to our intelligence by Congress and by the president. It's the kind of shameless behavior that makes many Americans disillusioned with the politicians we keep sending to Washington.

The time has come for the American people to make their representatives understand that we don't appreciate their regional pork projects and that fighting for our collective national interest is the only way they will earn our respect and our votes.

When they tell us they are bringing home the bacon, let's tell them it smells like pork.

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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