Bipartisan political shenanigans

The Senate may consider a bill to reduce or eliminate many of the egregious tax breaks and write-offs that go to Big Oil.

Just one problem: The bill's sponsor, New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, hasn't included refineries (including the many in New Jersey) under the bill. A staff aide says he didn't talk to any refinery companies.

And, of course, that's not the point. He didn't need to.

Meanwhile, an Ohio defense contractor has found its way around a bill banning earmarks to for-profit companies: Create a nonprofit that just happens to support the mission of the for-profit. And, Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, the beneficiary of campaign largesse from the for-profit, just happens to think this is a great idea.

And, so far, at least, it's been all Democratic representatives doing this.

This earmark sure won't fly

Secret manned surveillance planes purchased under a “black earmark” by the Drug Enforcement Administration suck so bad they’re being sold as cannibalized parts to maximize the money they produce in sale.

And, what is a “black earmark,” you might ask?

Per the story, which has a number of other examples, it’s analogous to the CIA’s black budget. It’s an earmark made in secret.

If you want to know how bad they are, black earmarks are part of what led to Duke Cunningham’s conviction less than two years ago.

Beyond that, the DEA is NOT the CIA; nor is the Coast Guard, also burned by a black earmark. There’s no need for any of its weaponry to be funded in secret.

Public financing of Congressional elections?

Whatever happened to it after Democrats regained Congress?

Oh, it likely went down the earmark rabbit hole.

And, it’s interesting, or hypocritical, that Barack Obama says he would force Congress to cut any earmark-laden bill it sends him next year, in light of:

Anti-pork watchdogs, for example, point to the $1.8 million in five earmarks for Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, which ran $8 million in the black last year and has embarked on a four-year, $100 million fundraising campaign. With that kind of money, why should taxpayers fund a $400,000 program earmarked by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to help the aquarium conduct a program aimed at preventing juvenile delinquency, watchdog groups ask.

Somehow, I doubt that particular item would be on President Obama’s chopping block.

As for Schmuck Talk Express™, there’s plenty of ways of bringing home Congressional bacon without earmarks. All you have to do is defend old, entrenched federal largesse. Out West, that means, below-market grazing fees on federal land, below-market water rates from federally-impounded lakes and below-market hydroelectricity rates. It’s called Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam.

There’s two ways to really reform Congress.

One is to pass a public campaign finance bill.

With one HUGE caveat. It has to include reasonable provisions for financing third-party campaigns. (Fat chance of that actually happening, though.)

The second is to amend the Constitution to put House members on a four-year election cycle.

Hypocrisy alert – Schmuck Talk Express™ goes a bridge too far

Blaming the Minneapolis bridge collapse of last year on Congressional earmarks is bullshit even by John McCain standards.

Then, we get the real bullshit, hypocrisy-style:

On the same day, McCain was confronted with an earmark he did consider worthy. During a forum at Lehigh Valley Hospital, he met a woman with ovarian cancer who was treated in a clinical trial funded with $80 million in congressional earmarks.

The hospital was showing off an electronic medical records system that is virtually paper-free.

McCain insisted he was not trying to have it both ways and said that deserving projects can get money through regular channels.

“It’s the process I object to,” he said. “I’m sure that I can give you a list of projects the Mafia funds, and they would probably be good projects. But I can’t give you a justification for the Mafia. I can’t give you a justification for the corruption that's been bred which has sent members of Congress to the federal prison,” he said.

You can’t have it both ways, John.

If the Mafia kept trash off the streets of Newark, would you hold that up as good work?

Or, to pin your woeful Middle East knowledge on you, if Hamas improved water, sewer and electricity service in Gaza over what Fatah did, would you hold that up as good work?

What a lying doorknob.

New party runs Congress, same greed prevails

Since regaining Congress, Democrats got 57 percent of earmarks. Freshman Dems in the House have been among the biggest recipients, in order to boost their reelection chances. And, Hillary Clinton is in the Senate’s top 10, with Barack Obama in the bottom 25, to the tune of a $250 million difference. (McCain doesn’t take earmarks.)

Taxpayers for Common Sense said earmarks totaled $18 billion in fiscal 2008.