Fiscal Policy--Election 2008 and Earmarks

Paul Zannucci--John McCain was, as usual, in the minority when it came to earmarks in last night's vote to get an earmarks moratorium pushed through. It failed 71-29, with even many Republicans voting against it. Three Democrats voted in favor of the measure. Guess who two of them were: Clinton and Obama. So don't go trying to use this as a campaign advantage, John, because Clinton and Obama are closet fiscal conservatives.

According to an article at the Heritage Foundation, since the Democrats have taken over congress, earmarks have skyrocketed to a total 11,351 pork projects. And when President Bush tried to push through an ethics bill that would dampen the process, Democrats removed such provisions as "trading of pork projects for votes." For a list of just a few of the pork projects in the 2008 budget, go here: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/upload/wm1660_table1.pdf

Democratic budget plans for 2009 also allow for some or all of Bush's tax cuts to expire in three years. I don't blame this on the Democrats. That's who they are. The Republicans had both the legislative and executive branches of government for years and never bothered to make the tax cuts permanent. All they managed to do was involve us in an expensive and unpopular war that gave control of the government back to the Democrats and put conservatives on the endangered list. It's the Republicans we should be angry with.

But where does that leave us fiscal conservatives? Voting Libertarian is like abstaining from the process. Those who feel that they are "making a statement" by voting for the Libertarians are definitely making a statement, but the statement is, "Hey, look at me throw my vote away!" The only thing a third party accomplishes is stealing votes from the main two parties, and the Libertarians don't steal enough votes from anyone to make a difference--and if they did, they'd steal them from the wrong guy.

Despite all the "not conservative enough" cries from Republicans, McCain is one of the few true fiscal conservatives out there. He may not vote for every Republican tax cut, but he is a lion about holding down spending. And yesterday's positive votes by Obama and Clinton on the earmark moratorium just show them for the hypocrites that they are. While Obama has been talking a good game, calling the earmark system broken, he has refused to release his personal earmarks, from before reporting was required, to the public (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/02/mccain-attacks.html). Last year, while running for office, he was "only" involved in $91 million which placed him in the bottom quarter of senators. Clinton, on the other hand, pushed through more than $340 million of earmarks, putting her in the top 10. As for McCain? His earmarks totaled $0. (http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/02/14/clinton_among_tops_in_earmark_spending/6017/)

So if you're a fiscal conservative who's been balking at voting for John McCain, you might want to think again.


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