Earmarxists

Senator Mitch McConnell, from Kentucky, even though he said he was for earmarks, that earmarks weren't wasteful, and were good for the folks back home, two days ago announced he would vote for a moratorium for two years on earmarks…I guess when the newly elected senate members arrived in Washington for their 'orientation week' they brought him a message he could understand. (Given his speech on TV, about his change of heart about 'pork barreling', you would have thought he was announcing the death of all of his grandchildren. Senator Mitch is a leading voice in the GOP. He supported the candidate who Rand Paul ran against in the primaries. This is a man who would not support Rand Paul during his campaign for the other Kentucky senate seat after he won the primaries. (Truly one of the good old boys to the core.)

The Senator and I are in an age range that is referred to as the 'seniors' group. For many of us in this group change of any shape, size, or form is difficult. For him, though, the power to 'pork' has been an important tool in securing his ongoing position and power in the Senate. For me it simply draws my attention to 'The Clock Ticking', OR I just hate change, or change is just difficult. Who know and who really cares because life and the act of living is change. However, when elected representatives stay ensconced in the big white building on the hill for too many election cycles, change needs to 'happen" for them and we need to make it 'happen'... and we did for many… good for us… and its good for them, and good for the country.

The argument for 'pork barreling' is that money goes to good causes back home and doesn't cost the tax payer anything extra…. To believe this you would have had to come to this conclusion in the middle of a long row picking cotton some hot afternoon..….. Let me give some (and I really mean just a few) examples of our Mississippi senators Cochran and Wicker. Whatever pet project these monies will be spent on you can bet they bargained for them with their votes and for their special supporters back home. (Note: Given the amount of money they have funneled into the State you wonder why any of us have to pay taxes. Oh my, could it be that this would be reason enough to keep them? Which we did.)

10400 176,000.00 Cochran & Wicker
10401 797,000.00 Wicker
10402 496,000.00 Cochran
10403 1,500,000.00 Cochran & Wicker
10404 654,000.00 Cochran & Wicker
10405 332,000.00 Cochran
10406 231,000.00 Cochran & Wicker
10407 98,000.00 Cochran & Wicker
10408 4,000,000.00 Cochran
10410 480,000.00 Cochran & Wicker
10413 376,000.00 Cochran
10414 208,000.00 Cochran
10415 235,000.00 Cochran
10416 2,000,000.00 Cochran
10417 223,000.00 Cochran
10418 939,000.00 Cochran
11381 250,000.00 Cochran 7 Wicker
11383 1,000,000.00 Cochran & Wicker

These few earmarks are just a sampling of our senators' very long list of accomplishments…..

Let's look at one of our congressmen for some real 'porking'.

11385 200,000.00 Childress
11392 6,000,000.00 "
11400 200,000.00 "
11408 2,400,000.00 "
13224 9,340,000.00 "
13227 400,000.00 "
13233 3 120,000.00 "
14423 8,000,000,00 "

For Childress this is also a short list. Childress did better than our two senators I think because Pelosi paid better….Know this is only a partial list for ONE of our congressmen. (Maybe, we made a mistake kicking him out? ( Just joking. -)

There are pages and pages of these earmarks regarding our two senators and just the one of our congressmen in the sample. If you want to know what projects these funds will be spent on ...Google "Pork Barrel"… OR www.cagw.org and check the earmark projects. If you do you may notice a pattern.

Current count for 2010, has found 9129 total earmarks from all the senators/congressmen across the country SO FAR. There are still bills coming before this lame duck Congress which will really be loaded. The bet is this will be a watershed year with over 10,000. Many of these earmarks will be one shot deals but others will require ongoing funding and it’s the 'ongoing' ones that are real financial killers.

You could look at this partial list of Ear Marked Projects and be impressed at how much our two fine senators and congressman accomplished. The other congressmen did well also...They "brung' home the bacon. So, why are we whining and complaining?

Somewhere up there in the white building are a bunch of old papers that says congress' mission is to protect the country and all the rights of the American citizens. Maybe we are complaining because we believe they are not accomplishing their mission. They are not singing on the same page with us. Our rights are being nibbled away, our money is being taken, and our country isn't safer, and government encroaches on every aspect of our lives and they keep on keeping on and we keep on electing them. This is crazy.. This is just crazy what we are doing….

(Just a note: Our federal government get taxes from all the citizens in all the states. Earmarks direct tax money from tax payers in one state and sends their tax dollars to other states for 'ear marks' projects. This slight of hand gets buried in some other bill and hidden from tax payers' view…i.e. they hide it in the pork barrel. Government says that they send more money back to the states than it get from the states. Really? How is this possible… Where does Washington get the extra money to pay for this 'pork barreling'? They print the money and run up national debt! Gee Wiz, how clever….(and let them eat cake.)

Our congressional guys and gals need a clear mission statement from us defining their job description (once again) as to the limits and purpose of the federal government. When we forget they forget what the purpose is and what the limits are. We forget-they forget..We forget- they forget. Happens every time.

The Tea Partiers are the authors of the history written on November 2, 2010. There is still blood on our hands due to our lack of responsible behavior with elected officials over the last few decades. We let them slide, we let them get side tracked in their duties, we let them become arrogant, and worse of all we let them abuse us and the nation… This coming election cycle is the beginning of Chapter 2 in this text book we are authoring titled "How Americans Reclaim Their Government." (Sub-titled: The Not So Quite Revolution.)

The next time you run into one of our august representatives and they begin the story about how much bacon they "brung us", ask them what they did about the illegal immigrants, ask about the unbelievable debt they have burdened you, your children, and grandchildren with, ask about the stifling tax rates on you and the businesses in the country, ask about the government regulations that are eating away at your freedoms as a citizen. Then say, " Mr. Employee, you have been in government for a long enough to figure out what your duties are. You haven't figured them out, you have failed, and your fired."

Same is true for state and local government employees. Example: It was discovered that the Department of Education spent $615,000.00 for lunches last fiscal year. Once discovered it was admitted they spent too much money on employees' lunches. WOW...The excuse was these were federally required training programs and this money was used for lunches during these trainings. Attorney General Jim Hood, in his defense of this spending, said this was not taxpayer dollars but federal grant money…Federal grants! So it appears our attorney general does not know where the federal government gets its money from. How can the state survive such inept people? How can we survive such inept people?

Everyone needs to look through the records and budgets of the various departments in Mississippi and see what is going on…. We have a really good web site in Mississippi for this. What is happening at the state level is the same as what is happening at the federal level. Just as irresponsible and just as crazy making only on a smaller scale.

Our State is our hearth… by it we raise and teach our children, we warm ourselves, cook our meals and live out our lives...We need to tend to our hearth first…Without a 'recall law' the people we elect, once elected, simply do what ever they want. Tell us one thing and do another without regard for us or the notion of right or wrong. Without 'recall' we have to wait years to fire the rascals.

Back last spring the song going around was 'Kick All The Bums Out." Realistically we couldn't pull this off in one election cycle…Keep in mind November 2, 2012, is only 714 days, 6 hours, 28 minutes from now…Lots of things we need to do and top of the list is to work more with our Governor. Good man…He needs our support in many ways. The state budget should be on everyone's desk soon. Get your copy. Get a red pen and you and your friends go through it. DO a little line item vetoing. Things to look for, in our mind, is hiring freezes, wage freezes in all departments and cutting each department's budget by fifteen percent on top of those other cuts. Can that really be done? Would that really be 'change?' No, but it would be a good start. If done, we wouldn't even notice any loss in service. The Governor proposes, and the two houses decide the final details of the budget. These are the elected official who need some 'belly butting' from us. Time for this nose to nose 'conversation' is absolutely running out.

Here is the link to find the details of our States' budget….

Seethespending.org

Ron

Docnick37@gmail.com

http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com/