Congressman John Campbell's Blog - Green Eyeshade Blog

Friday, September 12, 2008

Posted by: John Campbell at 4:48 PM

It’s no secret that this Congress has had a problem passing appropriations bills on time. Last year, we resorted to passing a giant omnibus bill at the last minute, and this year we likely will recess until after the election by passing a continuing resolution (CR), to fund the government at its current levels. The good thing about a CR is that at least the government will continue operating at current levels rather than recklessly increase spending levels.

Over on the Senate side, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) has introduced an amendment that would give the Dept. of Defense and Dept. of Energy the ability to disregard more than $5 billion in defense earmarks contained in the upcoming $612.5 billion defense policy measure ( S. 3001).

Senator Levin (D-MI), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services committee has objected to the amendment, and the bill has stalled in the Senate. I applaud Senator DeMint and his colleagues including Senator Coburn (R-OK) for taking a stand on this issue.

We have generals and admirals in the field who know what they need to fight and win. It is ridiculous that we would opt to divert needed resources towards unwanted and at times ineffective earmarks, and in the end it hurts our ability to effectively provide for our national security.

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Ex-tex writes:	Friday, September, 12, 2008 5:01 PM
It's not 'earmarks' that are the problem
It's PORK - Wasteful Spending- Earmarks that are FRAUDULENT ON NOT NEEDED. Funds from the Federal gov't should always be earmarked for PROPER USE and requesting them is not the problem. IT IS THE HABIT OF SENATORS TO HOLD THEIR VOTES HOSTAGE UNLESS 'CRAP' EARMARKS ARE INCLUDED. Govenors are DOING THEIR JOB TO REQUEST FUNDS and it isthe job of the Senate to DENY EARMARKS that are NOT in the best interest of the Country!
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dskerman writes:	Friday, September, 12, 2008 5:14 PM
earmarks a drop in the bucket
they make up 3% of the yearly budget deficit or .6% of the total yearly budget even McCain and Palin did away with all of them it would do very little to control spending and as the above poster points out, not all earmarks are necessarily bad. Most of them are just directed money which has already been commiteed to a government agency. stats from former republican John Cole http://www.balloon-juice.com/?p=11268 looks like his page is down right now, but it will probably be back up soon
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douglas writes:	Saturday, September, 13, 2008 10:55 AM
while talking on earmarks
I just want to point out that only a true canidate of "CHANGE" could tag 90 mil in earmarks to bill in senate this year, attack a governer for accepting money to the state for improvements as if she did something illegal, or unethical.And only a politican who used earmarks for payback would complain but not ever tell us a couple of things, like how much income to the fed gov. did alaska generate last year in taxes, since 20% of all fuel used in us goes through there,and how much did the giant illinois generate,and why shouldnt a state that gives so much ask for some back instead of watching their tax dollars go to illinois or ny, or ct.Oh and by the way how much exactly in earmarks did either palin or mccain add to bills in congress, OH THATS RIGHT NONE!!!!!Politics of change or politics of crap, i think the latter.
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Rich Not wealthy writes:	Monday, September, 15, 2008 4:07 PM
While the premise is valid, saying that
we have Generals and Admirals in the Pentagon that know more about what we need may not be true. With the stories of bickering among those at the Pentagon over the surge and Gen Patraeus' leadership, it would seem that we have a bunch of military "leaders" that compare to the bunch that Lincoln had at the start of the Civil War. That is a bunch of toadies that don't really know squat about winning a war. That should not be all that surprising though, as we have not "won" a war since WWII. I am discounting Panama, Grenada and the first Gulf war as all we did in 91 was to kick them out of Kuwait, not defeat them totally as we should have.
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About John Campbell

John Campbell is a member of the House Financial Services Committee, and has taken a leadership role in addressing the country's top economic issues. Campbell serves as a member of the Joint Economic Committee, and House Committee on the Budget. He has a Bachelor's Degree in Economics from UCLA and a Master's Degree in Taxation from USC.