GOP is spending like Democrats
by James Simpson

Potomac News
Friday, February 6, 2004

This past week I voted in an online poll for the Citizens Against Government Waste "Porker of 2003."
The list consisted of four Republicans (Rep. Jim Gibbons, Sen. Arlen Specter, Sen. Ted Stevens and Rep. Terry Everett) and one Democrat (Sen. Tom Harkin) - who were finalists selected from a list of 10 Republican and 6 Democratic winners of 2003 CAGW "Porker of the Month" award. (Note: In some months more than one congressman was honored.)

There is nowhere near enough space to go into details about their pork spending, however, more detail is available at www.cagw.org.

Rep. Gibbons, R-Nevada, had $225,000 pig-earmarked (a more appropriate term than simply "earmarked") for a swimming pool near where he grew up. Using a common justification for the expenditure, Gibbons explained that if he wasn't the one who had submitted the request, the money would simply have gone to another pool project somewhere else.

Rep. Everett, R - Ala., pig-earmarked $200,000 for a new agricultural arena to be used by the elderly and disabled at the National Peanut Festival.

Sen. Harkin, D-Iowa, pig-earmarked $98 million of the supplemental war funding bill (intended to support the Department of Defense and Homeland Security) for an Ames, Iowa agricultural research station.

Sen. Specter, R-Pa., pig-earmarked $1 million for the Geisinger Health System to establish centers of excellence for the treatment of autism and $200,000 for the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine for a minority outreach oral health initiative. This was part of the 2003 Emergency Supplemental portion of the fiscal 2004 Legislative Branch Appropriations Act to help cover: natural disasters, homeland security and costs associated with the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.

My vote however, went to Sen. Stevens, R-Alaska. A notorious pork barrel spender, Sen. Stevens promised to filibuster a vote on Senate Resolution 173 if it came to the floor. This bill would allow any senator to raise a point of order against pork-barrel appropriation earmarks - allowing senators the opportunity to object to pork barrel provisions and subject them to a separate vote.

It is unconscionable to me that these representatives take our tax money and redistribute it to their pet projects as they do. Our soldiers don't have enough armor to protect themselves and the so-called Social Security system (that we are all forced to pay into) will be bankrupt before many of us are old enough to retire - yet they do everything necessary to ensure their continued incumbency.

Frederic Bastiat wrote the following in his excellent book entitled, The Law: "But how is this legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime."

By that definition they are guilty of practicing "legal plunder." What I would like to know is how these men and women are able to sleep at night. They are without morals or ethics. To break the trust of the people by robbing Peter to pay off Paul is heinous.

The first chapter of the Republican Party Platform, adopted on Aug. 31, 2000, at their National Convention, states: "Budget surpluses are the result of over-taxation of the American people. The weak link in the chain of prosperity is the tax system. It not only burdens the American people; it threatens to slow, and perhaps to reverse, the economic expansion."

The Republican controlled congress has taken care of the "surplus" problem - that's for sure. Yet they can't seem to grasp the second part of that statement... about prosperity being tied to the tax system.

As the great economist Milton Friedman once said; "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."

This irresponsibility and hypocrisy is rife throughout the Republican Party.

On the GOP home page (gop.com) under GOP Agenda - Economy - Presidents Plan; President Bush has laid out three main goals: Encourage consumer spending, promote investment by individuals and businesses and deliver critical help to unemployed citizens.

It doesn't come as any surprise - to me - that President Bush encourages more consumerism without addressing the ravenous appetite of our government - he needs more money to give away to foreign countries we invade (righteously or not) so they can rebuild... then sell us their oil reserves. It doesn't matter that virtually every nation we have ever helped has stabbed us in the back at their first opportunity.

The encouragement that was provided by Republican leadership, immediately after 9-11 and ever since, is - spend more. It doesn't matter that many Americans, even those fortunate enough to have jobs, are in debt up to their ears.

Thomas Jefferson wrote to William Plummer in a letter on July 21, 1816: "I, however, place economy among the first and most important republican virtues, and public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared."

I challenge anyone to tell the difference between a Republican and Democrat by looking at their spending record. Short of Rep. Ron Paul, R- Texas, there simply isn't any difference in the tax and spend mentality of our representatives.

James Simpson lives in Lake Ridge and has become fed up with such wasteful spending.