RSSHelp Stop Washington’s Culture of Waste & Corruption!
CAGW | March 28, 2010
I need your help to stop one of the worst sources of wasted taxpayer dollars and special-interest corruption in Washington.
Before you do anything else today, I urge you to call on your U.S. Representative and Senators to sign CCAGW’s No Pork Pledge!
http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/R?i=87fk5RxzqbD_iekDjqRg4Q..
Let me explain.
You may have read the recent headlines about Democrats in the House of Representatives banning congressional earmarks for for-profit companies and House Republicans declaring a “complete” earmark moratorium.
But don’t believe for one minute that the scourge of corrupt, self-serving, pork-barrel earmarks is over!
What the self-congratulatory propaganda from both sides of the political aisle isn’t telling you is: These earmark reform measures are full of loopholes and workarounds.
First of all, neither measure is permanent. They both apply just to the fiscal year 2011 appropriations bills.
What’s more, the ban on earmarks to for-profit companies touted by the Democratic House leadership will leave as much as 90 PERCENT of earmarks untouched. That’s because most earmarks go to state or local agencies or to nonprofit organizations, which then channel the funds to private companies.
As just one example, according to the Washington Post, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.), the author of the for-profit ban, has helped secure $3.2 million in earmarks in recent years for a home-state university, but much of that money actually went to a for-profit Chicago firm that often partners with universities to reap part of their earmark benefits.
In addition, both the Democrats’ for-profit ban and the Republicans’ moratorium exclude projects already authorized and competitively awarded. That loophole applies to many big-ticket defense programs that lawmakers keep alive or “plus-up” over the wishes of the Defense Department. For example, in 2010, Congress added 10 C-17 transport planes to the Defense Budget, at a cost to taxpayers of $2.5 billion; tacked on $825 million for all-terrain vehicles that the Pentagon did not request; and funded 14 other unrequested planes, costing $732 million.
This unnecessary, special-interest spending is “hollowing out” our Defense Budget!
Last but not least, the Senate has not agreed to any earmark restrictions, so Washington’s high-priced lobbyists will just switch their focus from one congressional chamber to the other, and the total number and cost of pork-barrel earmarks will likely drop little, if at all.
Since 1991, we have documented more than 100,000 pork-barrel projects, costing taxpayers $290 billion. Not coincidentally, the proliferation of pork-barrel earmarks over the past 20 years has corresponded with the debasement of the federal budgetary process and Americans’ growing disdain for their elected representatives. As lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-Calif.) have illustrated, lawmakers and lobbyists trade in earmarks as their “currency of corruption,” undermining public confidence in our democratic system of government.
That’s why we must get more and more members of Congress to sign CCAGW’s No Pork Pledge.
By getting your Senators and Representative to commit in writing to stop requesting pork-barrel earmarks, we — and you — will be able to hold them accountable if they continue to waste taxpayers’ money
on frivolous, self-serving, pet projects.
I urge you to tell your Representative and Senators to sign CCAGW’s No Pork Pledge today
http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/R?i=c-omwZNYWId9z-2iUY4i6A..
.
And when you do, I also want to ask you to make a contribution to CCAGW
http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/R?i=1_bKi7qRYf9sMzwO4K26yg..
to help us expand the scope of our No Pork Pledge campaign. You see, we are not only asking incumbent members of Congress to sign our pledge, we are also reaching out to congressional challengers all across the country, particularly those who are running against the biggest spenders, and asking them to commit to ending pork-barrel earmarks before they ever enter Congress.
That’s important because as newly-elected members of Congress become indoctrinated in the ways of Washington, they become more and more likely to feel entitled to spend taxpayers’ money as if it were their own. We need to get them to commit from day one not to go along with business-as-usual in our nation’s
capital!
I urge you to make a contribution to CCAGW today
http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/R?i=tDRjFpUuozEbrUAbYbtmXQ..
to help us distribute our No Pork Pledge to hundreds of challengers, publicize the names of those candidates who have signed the pledge, and broadcast to the American public the numerous examples of how pork-barrel earmarks waste tax dollars and contribute to corruption in Washington.
The temptation to curry favor and secure campaign contributions in exchange for taxpayer-funded, pork-barrel earmarks has lured members of Congress into questionable, patently unethical, sometimes even criminal behavior. For two decades, CCAGW has led the drive to end this corrupt practice, stirring the taxpayer rage that has led Congress to enact modest reforms.
Help us now force members of Congress to refocus their energies on important national issues and cease the self-serving greed that has increasingly characterized the appropriations process.
Please tell your Representative and Senators today to sign CCAGW’s No Pork Pledge
http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/R?i=_QRqx92ynPwhdLrnJ_kQiA..
and make a contribution
http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/R?i=2tX3Pp7KRny8J46wIHQVHA..
to support our campaign to end the culture of waste and corruption in Washington.
Sincerely,
Thomas A. Schatz
President
Contributor's website: http://cagw.org
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