What is Digg?21 Comments
- willers32, on 10/11/2007, -0/+6I agree with "biggsdarklight" that the passage of the bill and earmarking are two different issues.
If Ron votes "NO" on the bill and the bill passes anyway, it gives him a chance to "bring home the bacon" without compromising his principles. If he does not earmark funds for his own district, the money will be spent anyway, but in some other congressman's district.
It is a sad commentary on how corrupt our system is that even Ron Paul has to participate in it. Congress is full of "go along to get along" issues. - biggsdarklight, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5
It's important to understand that Ron Paul actually votes "No" on these handouts from the government. However, if the bill is going to pass he is still allowed to allocate funding to his constituents.
If the money is going to spent anyway then why not?
The passing of a bill and earmarking funds are two separate steps. - Coolwaters, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Please enlighten us with some meaningful degree of specificity as to exactly what you see as contradictory. I suppose supporting rationale would be asking too much?
- LiveAtTheBBC, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6these are for local issues for advances in medicine and misc. research, not for funding of government programs
- iz3r, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7You must seek out your own resarch that is how you find anything and everything out. From doing further research, Paul is simply giving the money back to the tax payers. And if you notice on the CNN investigation almost none of the dem's released their earmarks
- d1eforyorr1ghts, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Would somone please post the earmarks from the rest of congress.
It is wierd how Ron Paul (the candidate that cannot win, supposedly) is always under such scrutiny.
Why doesn't this information come out about other candidates?
Other members of congress have been sticking it to the American people for years, but I have never seen this before.
If your going to post earmarks for Ron Paul, I think we should see all the other candidates earmarks to be fair.
I see one request for a poultry amount of 25,000 dollars for a Child Project system.. I would say he is pinching pennies by government standards.
I think it is also another prime example of why Ron Paul wants the to shrink the Federal government. Every single little need has to be requested from the Feds, crazy.
If states would take care of there own matters, maybe we would not have to drain the whole country of its cash to pay for everyone elses little projects.
From listening to Ron Paul it sounds like he would rather have the states taking on there own projects instead of the big fat Feds doing everything anyway. - dmjarrington, on 10/11/2007, -2/+6It'd be nice to have some examples of which funds were contradictory... This is sort of long, and without any analysis it makes this a chore...
/end bitching. - noztnac, on 12/27/2007, -1/+5Here's how earmarks work:
Suppose you and two co-workers have a common lunch fund. You are debating what to order for lunch. You prefer Chinese food which costs less, but your two buddies want a fancy pizza with all the toppings.
Before you actually vote on where to order lunch from, you make it clear to them that if pizza wins, you are "earmarking" two slices for yourself. What the heck...it's YOUR money.
When the vote is cast, you vote AGAINST the fancy pizza expenditure in favor of the more economical Chinese food.
When you lose the vote, aren't you still entitled to the slices that you "earmarked" and paid for?
Ron Paul puts his earmarks in, but ALWAYS VOTES AGAINST THE FINAL BILL. When he loses the vote (which he always does because he is the most fiscally responsible man in Congress), he gets money earmarked for his district. If he doesnt earmark...that money will be spent elsewhere!...So if you dont eat your slices.....your buddies get to screw you out of lunch.
Do you get it now? Of course, the media won't tell you the whole story of Ron Paul's earmarks. - netmasta10bt, on 10/10/2007, -0/+3The Congressman will write on earmarks on bills for his constituents because the bills are appropriating federal funds that his constituents have paid into. He will however vote AGAINST the bill. Should the bill pass anyway he gets a piece of the pie for the people he represents.
- davidmesaaz, on 05/22/2008, -0/+1How in the world is funding for a theater in his district constitutional? When the founding fathers were writing the consitution I don't think they saw the role of government to fund shrimp research. If he votes against the final bill why does he request them. Its such a political game its a have my cake and eat it too.
- JPOOPOO, on 03/02/2009, -0/+1"If he votes against the final bill why does he request them. "
For someone with such criticisms, one would think you would have done some research to learn the answer to you all-important WHY.
Ron Paul votes against the bill because he believes it is unconstitutional. Ron Paul earmarks money for his district because his constituents are also taxpayers, who pay a good portion of their income every year in taxes to the government. At this point there are two option for Dr. Paul: A) he can not get any of his constituents money back and stand on his morals to a further degree by refusing to even play the game of earmarks, or B) he can assure his tax-paying constituents get what they deserve.
If he goes with A) he will be criticized for not helping his constituents get the money they gave away as taxes spent on things relevant to them
If he goes with B), he is criticized for getting his constituents their money back. - biggsdarklight, on 10/11/2007, -1/+1The vast majority of congress won't release their earmarks. Ron Paul did because his honest and doesn't care if people see how he gets funding allocated.
Again, Ron Paul votes against these spending bills. However by doing so that does not exclude him for earmarking funds when they pass. If the bills pass (and they usually do because Congress loves to bribe their constituents and the people don't object) the congress then gets to allocate the funding. The money is going to get spent no matter what, so Paul earmarks them for people in his district (like every other member of congress). - ajwitoslawski, on 03/27/2009, -0/+0An earmark isn't additional spending, it simply redirects spending from the executive branch to the Congressman who gets the earmark. For example, if Congress has $5 million to spend, it could send it to the President to add to some agency, or Congressmen could use that $5 million for projects in their home districts. By earmarking, Ron Paul is doing the consistently libertarian action by taking money away from a centralized government and giving it to his constituents.
- Grimass, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0It would be interesting to hear Dr. Paul's take on this particular issue. I imagine that he would vote against it, but you never know.
- Fallbackpuppet, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0 d1eforyorr1ghts,
Ron is a long shot be he is the last and only hope to stop or cushion the crash/fall of the American empire and passably begin restoring the republic. There are a lot of folks that like me are sick of Washington telling us how to live our lives and squandering the product of our labor against our will and for purposes that are repugnant to us. So the truth is he has a shot at winning and the establishment is scared of him that is why they attack him so much. If he really was off base and he really did not have a shot they would ignore him. I personally unaffiliated with Dr. Paul's campaign worked a booth at the gun show this weekend where we registered or re-registered 1400 people to vote and the purpose of the booth was the revolution and all of them registered republican with the purpose of voting for the good Dr in the primaries. I will say it again Ron has a shot to win if he did not they would ignore him and not attack him as they have been.
The truth is that his message has traction among the American people. Freedom is popular not being afraid is popular the idea of money that does not continually lose its value is popular, ending the cycle of boom, not having you mailemailphone lines monitored is popular and bust (the housing market is the most recent) created by the fed is popular. Ron is the only candidate from either party with a message of freedom and peace both positions are attractive. The establishment attacks Dr. Paul so vigorously because he can win and the midterm elections showed that the people are sick of the status quo. The Democrats did not win on their message they won because they are not republicans, the truth be told there is not a dimes worth of difference between most republicans and democrats. - Jordanacus, on 03/04/2009, -0/+0No, it isn't weird. You see, the other candidates were honest with earmarks; your precious Paul stated, tirelessly, that he simply DOES NOT do earmarks. THIS is contradictory. A Democrat earmarking is consistent with their philosophy, and Neo-Cons just do whatever they want. The only Paul got ANY respect during this race is because people though, for whatever reason, they could trust him and his outlook on such spending.
you guys were wroooooooooooooooooooooooong - Fallbackpuppet, on 10/10/2007, -0/+0d1eforyorr1ghts,
Ron is a long shot be he is the last and only hope to stop or cushion the crash/fall of the American empire and passably begin restoring the republic. There are a lot of folks that like me are sick of Washington telling us how to live our lives and squandering the product of our labor against our will and for purposes that are repugnant to us. So the truth is he has a shot at winning and the establishment is scared of him that is why they attack him so much. If he really was off base and he really did not have a shot they would ignore him. I personally unaffiliated with Dr. Paul's campaign worked a booth at the gun show this weekend where we registered or re-registered 1400 people to vote and the purpose of the booth was the revolution and all of them registered republican with the purpose of voting for the good Dr in the primaries. I will say it again Ron has a shot to win if he did not they would ignore him and not attack him as they have been.
The truth is that his message has traction among the American people. Freedom is popular not being afraid is popular the idea of money that does not continually lose its value is popular, ending the cycle of boom, not having you mailemailphone lines monitored is popular and bust (the housing market is the most recent) created by the fed is popular. Ron is the only candidate from either party with a message of freedom and peace both positions are attractive. The establishment attacks Dr. Paul so vigorously because he can win and the midterm elections showed that the people are sick of the status quo. The Democrats did not win on their message they won because they are not republicans, the truth be told there is not a dimes worth of difference between most republicans and democrats. - inactive, on 04/04/2008, -1/+1Looking at the earmarks that the person posting this is whining about I see that he asked for funding for poor asthma patients at the University Hospital. I guess the person who posted this hates kids with that medical condition and wants them to suffer.
Then there is the "pork" to partially fund a cancer center and as we all know people in Ron Paul's district don't get cancer so there's no need for this "pork", right?
Another "pork" project Ron Paul requested money for is a Children's Identification and Location Database, oh my!
Then there are also several requests for the Army Corp. of Engineering projects with the money to go for maintenance and everyone agrees that when you build something there's no need to maintain it, so the funding must be pure pork.
There are also requests for funding of highway maintenance, boy I can see why you haters are all upset about that. It isn't like people in Ron Paul's district pay federal taxes on every gallon of gasoline and diesel fuel, right?
In looking through all of the projects he asked for, I don't see any that I think are pork, but maybe the lamers and haters and political cowards have something against any money being used in Ron Paul's district because they hate Ron so much?
In any event there's no pork requested in the earmarks, all are worthy projects or maintenance of existing projects and the majority of them are tied directly to Corp of Engineer or Texas DOT projects for which the federal government already has an existing obligation or for schooling for medical personnel or for treating people with illness.
So, to the lamers and haters and political cowards, how many dollars of all of those earmarks do you consider "pork"?
Should we tell the kids with asthma to tough it out? Tell the cancer patients to die? Let bridges collapse? - BruceCage, on 12/15/2007, -0/+0Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWTyHbGcUQY
- dunrobin, on 10/11/2007, -2/+0I would be interested in what Dr. Paul or his staff say about these letters. Frankly, I'm not instantly convinced that they are even legitimate. I found it curious that the body of the letters are frequently on a tilt, yet the signature block is always in exactly the same position and straight, and his signature is exactly the same every time. It wouldn't be very hard to scan a legitimate letter and create a fraudulent one.
- xdefiancex, on 10/11/2007, -5/+0its a fscking pdf file
nice try troll.
nobody cares bitch.
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