ACORN, LaRaza get double-dips of pork barrel in stimulus, omnibus spending bills
By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor
February 25, 2009
So President Barack Obama wants to cut the federal deficit in half by 2013? He can start by downsizing the amount of pork fat flowing to dozens of special interest groups that supported his candidacy.
About a hundred of these groups, including the Association for Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the National Education Association (NEA) and the National Council of La Raza, have already received billions of tax dollars under Obama’s $787 billion stimulus plan. Yet they now stand to rake in even more federal money under the $410 billion omnibus spending bill now wending its way through Congress.
“The Democrats are asking taxpayers to pay for over 100 accounts in the omnibus bill that are also in the stimulus bill,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday.
“It strikes us that we're on a spending spree of gargantuan proportions here. A good time to stop it would be getting this omnibus appropriation bill down to a size that’s consistent with the current budget,” McConnell said.
How can congressional Democrats possibly justify giving the same organizations that already got a heaping helping of pork in the stimulus bill another scoop in the omnibus bill while taxpayers are suffering?
Despite Obama’s campaign promise to reduce earmarks, which are essentially handouts to the favored few, Taxpayers for Common Sense found 8,570 earmarks worth $7.7 billion in the current omnibus bill.
Adding those to the $6.6 billion in earmarks passed last fall, TSC calculates there are a total of $14.3 billion in for FY09 – a mere $500 million less than the year before. Democrats have clearly not eliminated the “culture of corruption” rampant on Capitol Hill, just changed the names of the beneficiaries.
Speaking of beneficiaries, the omnibus bill contains a $473,000 earmark for La Raza, which has called for Mexico to annex the southwestern states. Maybe it’s time to take them up on the offer and let the Mexican government bail out California for a change.
The omnibus bill also contains more funding for ACORN, which has been implicated in voter fraud in several states. Rep. Jeff Flake, R-AZ, also discovered that more than $7 million in earmarks are targeted for clients of the former PMA – currently under investigation by the FBI for campaign fraud.
So here we are, in the middle of a full-blown economic crisis, and Congress is still planning to fund a planetarium in Peoria, potato cloning in Maine, and a “World Trade Center” in Montana. There’s even a $5.8 million earmark for the “Ted Kennedy Institute for the Senate,” which will presumably teach generations of future senators how to stick it to productive Americans, if there’s any of them left by then.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-MD, tried to deflect well-deserved criticism of such wanton spending by distributing flyers at his weekly press conference that read: “You can’t spell ‘earmark’ without an R.”
Hoyer pointed out that 40 percent of the earmarks in the bill were sponsored by Republicans. Fair enough. But that means that 60 percent are sponsored by his fellow Democrats.
Sen. John McCain, R-AZ, is calling on Obama to keep his campaign promise. “The president should say, ‘Get that pork outta there, or I’ll veto it!’” McCain told FOX News. “We can’t afford to do this anymore.” Especially since the national debt will increase from $120K to $152K for each American household.
The omniporkus bill contains an eight percent increase over baseline spending at twice the rate of inflation, representing the largest discretionary spending hike since the “malaise” days of Jimmy Carter.
We all know what happened to him.
Barbara F. Hollingsworth is the Examiner’s local opinion editor. She can be reached by email at: bhollingsworth@dcexaminer.com.
Follow The Examiner
