Despite the new Democratic congressional leadership’s promise of “openness and transparency” in the budget process, a CNN survey of the House found it nearly impossible to get information on lawmakers’ pet projects.
Initially, staffers for only 51 of the 435 members of the House contacted by CNN between June 13 and 15 were willing to supply a list of their earmark requests for fiscal year 2008, which begins on October 1. Some of those 34 staffers simply pointed callers to Web sites where those earmark requests were posted.
Of the current remainder, 68 declined to provide CNN with a list, and 316 either didn’t respond to requests or said they would get back to us, and didn’t.
“As long as we are not required to release them, we’re not going to,” said Dan Turner, an aide to Rep. Jim McCrery, R-Louisiana.
That sort of elitism remains at the heart of the process. It has nothing to do with providing “for the folks back home”. It’s rooted in a Congress that rejects openness to the public that elected them.
I am a single issue voter.
If you are in office, I vote for the opposition.
>>If you are in office, I vote for the opposition.
Well, at least for the presidential election, that works for me. Ain’t always so, though. When Bill Clinton was in office, I voted for Bill Clinton. And when his term limit came up, I voted for Gore.
The only good thing to come out of Dumbya’s presidency is that it has been such a miserable failure on every major front that whoever gets elected in ’08 is going to be as different from his as day and night. 2008 election….bring it on! Maybe in January ’09 we can put up “mission accomplished” banners that really mean something.
Does this surprise anybody? The only way to fix congress is to nuke it from orbit.
Why am I not surprised?
2–I wish that were true. Uniformly, these encumbent politicians say they are against BushCo’s policies, and when given a chance to change, act just like Bushco.
This thread is one example. Funding Iraq war is another. And so forth.
Vote all encumbents out. That pretty much leaves the libertarian party, green party, and new independents. Might be a tough go for a time, but couldn’t be any worse.
#3
You better look outside your window… any black SUVs with tinted windows? 😉
1.
Does Anyone THINk that the internet, Can/has/Will/COULD be used to get information, and to monitor Our Elected officials??
2.
do you REALLy think they are telling the truth?
3.
do you think they are telling EVERYTHING they are doing?
ONLY when we can Raid these folks with the Popporatzi, AS IT USED TO BE, and monitor them WILL we have some control Over them.
We do have the ability to Shacle them to Some control with the net, but its NOT enough.
They are PUBLIC figures, that have made Laws to control HOW and when they are view’d. Actors dont get this much consideration, and Even YOU dont get this much privacy.
There are a couple of groups worth staying in touch with:
http://www.congress.org has a long track record and assists in hollering at your representatives. CREW – http://www.citizensforethics.org has been around for ~4 years and does all the boring scholarly research, sifting through public and/or hard-to-acquire documents to run tracks on our sleazy politicians. And then publishes the results.
There are more; but, these are 2 of the best non-partisan outfits.
Funny how the neo-libs would rather continue to call Bush names, than to address the real issue, that this DEMOCRAT controlled congress is doing everything they accused the republican congress of doing. But go ahead, keep on bashing Bush, even when he has nothing to do with the story, you just show how much of a hypocrite you really are.
As for the story itself, congress itself has been out of control for a long time (I am looking at you Republicans too), the fact is both parties have learned that the best way to keep themselves in office is to “buy votes” with the publics money, and the more votes they can buy, the longer they can stay in office.
A couple of years ago (during the republican congress ironically), someone in the house tried to get a law passed, that would require any new spending bill to justify itself constitutionally, before if could be voted on. As you can imagine, it didn’t even get out of committee.
Unfortunately both parties are politicians first. Which means, the more money they can get from our pocket to their own war chest means more power for them.
Didn’t click the link or read the article, again? If anything, it’s an indictment of the Dem copping out on their promises. Yeah, the Republikans established the standard for sleaze over the past 12 years; but, the Dems appear to be joining the club – as usual.
Or are you supposed to be discussing something else, here?
9–Last time I checked, BushCo is still the Peznit of the GOUSA–with veto power over legislation that contains earmarks , and is the head to the Republican Party. Either he is in charge of the Executive Branch of the GOUSA and the leader of the Repug Party,==or he has nothing to do with this story.
Either way, he and his defenders and his band of ne’er do wells, deserve a real bashing. Not just relevant comment from the bloggoshere.
BTW, I wonder what you think you gain by attacking Dems and then claiming both parties are the same? Is that being clever in the Repug play book?
Excuse me bobbo and some others….the story is about *earmarks*….you guys love to bash Bush and the Republicans for what they did or didn’t do in power….but earmarking came into being under the 45 year one party rule of the Democrats in congress. Then , if my memory is working, the Democrats screamed to high heaven in 2006 elections they would get rid of all these corrupt powers the Republicans used, earmarking being one that was specifically mentioned.
What we have here is a failure of you supposed **for the people** people to be honest about what you really believe in….your Democrats, period….there is nothing non-partisian about your bashing. If you weren’t, you would be outraged that it’s YOUR party that has refused, once in power to live up to their campiegn promises.
The article above manages to quote a Republican who is for earmarks…..what it dosen’t talk about is that most of those congressman that are reporting their earmarks, and that have actually voted to force them out in the open BEFORE a bill passes, have been Republicans. Of course the Republicans are mostly only doping it to piss off and get points against the Democrats, but sometimes this is how we get rules that matter.
There’s are two reasons why congress is only liked by 15%….one is they backed down when toe to toe with Bush on the war…..the other is, in only 6 months they have shown they didn’t learn a damn thing from being out of power for 12 years.
Keep up the good work congress…..you may be finally pissing off enough people, along with the idiot in the WH, to vote for a third party and throw out a bunch of incumbants.
WE, need to clean house.
HOW do you think these folks get elected…
SOMEONE supplies them with money.
They stick their UGLY face on the TV, until we cant see anything ELSE.
And the only person we remember is the ONE(1) we saw all the time, and not the guy that Spent the least on his election.
It AINT cheap.
And Corps have BOTH of the major groups IN HAND/Pocket.
TIMe to put these folks UNDer the micro scope, and Dig up the OLD skelitons.
LOOk at the laws they MADE so they can hide Their money and Cover their BUTTS.
Our leaders are out of control and cannot serve with honor even if so disposed, the system is broken and cannot be fixed, and the “cure” will be the ultimate collapse of modern society. That won’t happen anytime soon, as western civilization will continue to totter on for many years in it’s bloated momentum.
::sigh:: -business as usual.
we are so screwed for 2008 elections.. there is no one running worthy of even 1 vote, -in any house.
-nary a scruple amongst them.
the only thing that is assured is that the candy coated bullcrap they spoon feed us will be even sweeter.
we need to purge the whole lot of’ em and give the independents and libertarians a spin. -the current two party system has failed it’s people miserably.
get some people who are right down the middle on everything, have a backbone, a working moral compass, don’t want to police the world and have no problem being held publicly accountable for their actions. -quarterly reports and the like..
on top of that, have 50% of their pay based on merit.
and as a side note, figure out a way to disallow all media groups from applying any kind of ratings system to their newscasts. -i’m really tired being spoon-ed candy coated
sensational crap from them too.
-banning any further reporting on paris hilton would be a good start too.
yeah it’s a pipe dream, but that’s about all we have left.
oh, and NO electronic voting… as dumb as that may sound.
-i sure as hell will NEVER trust the outcome of any elections that have been tallied via computerized voting computers.
-ever.
i’m really sick of what our government and we as a people have evolved into.
-soundwash
12—of course this is about earmarks and the gutless Dems and equally complicit Repugs. And the whole affair led by BushCo.
My post No 5 accurately and consistently with your post says the Dems were whores who finally acted just like BushCo. Then the complaint comes that BushCo is irrelevant to this issue and we are all just Bush Bashing.
Divide and Conquer Repugs. I guess we all expect so little from BushCo that we forget he is the PRESIDENT of the GOUSA and is supposed to be leading us??????
No better role for (a good) president than to bring Congress up short when they fail in their duties ((and vice-versa)). Sadly, our GOVERNMENT is about all three branches ALL THE TIME. A charge of Bush bashing would be valid only as misplaced emphasis.
Q. Why is is so windy in the middle?
A. Because Democrats suck and Republicans blow.
(Or is it the other way around?)