Health Care Bill Fact of the Day: Billions in Pork Barrel Spending for ‘Community Transformation’ and ‘Beautification’

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  August 12th at 07:00 AM  | 

Under the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee’s “Affordable Health Choices Act,” local governments can apply for “community transformation” grants to build jungle gyms, sidewalks, bicycle paths, and grocery stores, to install streetlights, and to establish new farmers’ markets. The dollar amount of these grants, and of the total “community transformation” earmark program, is left to the discretion of the Obama administration. Cities can | Read More »

House GOP Leaders Reach Across Aisle, Pledge to Support Obama if he will Attempt to Fulfill Promise of Fiscal Responsibility

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  March 6th at 02:06 PM  | 

Last Friday, ten House Republican leaders sent a letter to President Barack Obama. In it, they offered to work across party lines and Congressional divisions with the new president to achieve the latter’s stated commitment “to fiscal transparency and accountability and ensuring that [all] spending commitments are paid for without burdening our children and grandchildren with excessive debt,” and to “slash[ing] earmarks to no greater | Read More »

GOP Attempt to Freeze Spending, Strip Earmarks from Omnibus Fails in House

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  March 6th at 12:54 PM  | 

Update: An emailer points out that the 54 Rs and Ds who abstained from voting on the motion must have made President Obama, with his history of over 100 “present” votes in the Illinois state legislature, very proud. Minority Leader John Boehner’s Motion to Recommit, which would have frozen federal spending at current levels and stripped the 9,000 un-reviewed earmarks from the $410,000,000,000.00 omnibus spending | Read More »

BREAKING: House Republicans to Force Vote on Spending Freeze, Stripping of Earmarks from Omnibus

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  March 6th at 10:52 AM  | 

We’ve received word that House Republicans plan to force a vote this morning on a spending freeze that would lock in federal spending at current levels and strip the $410,000,000,000.00 “omnibus” spending bill of all 9,000 “un-scrutinized earmarks.” Though certain to fail, this is another laudable move from a GOP minority that unanimously opposed the nearly $1,000,000,000,000.00 in pork-barrel waste that made up President Obama’s | Read More »

Republican Mainstreeters Caving in to Democrats, Providing “Bipartisan” Cover for Nearly $1T in Pork Spending

By: Jeff Emanuel (Diary)  |  February 6th at 01:47 PM  | 

From Byron York at NRO: Just got off the phone with an influential Republican senator. I asked how things stood with the stimulus, and he answered instantly, “They’ve cut a deal with three of our guys. They’re delaying us from offering amendments. I suspect that as soon as they’ve got it written, they will offer it as an amendment, vote on it, and that will | Read More »