“I’ve never voted for an earmark in my life,” the Texas congressman said under questioning on NBC’s “Meet the Press” about reports that he has requested hundreds of millions of dollars for special projects in his home district.
“I put them in because I represent people who are asking for some of their money back,” said Paul, who likened it to taking a tax credit. “I’m against the tax system, but I take all my tax credits. I want to get their money back for the people.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071223/ap_po/ron_paul
I can kind of see his point, but if he’s not going to vote for other earmarks, why even put them in legislation?
Isn’t it about time that ALL earmarks are forced to be voted on individually, and not used as bribes to get legislation passed, or hidden in defense funding bills, or transportation bills, or others?
jneg7:
Who said anything about the Line Item Veto? All I said was let the “earmarks” be put into their own, stand alone legislation.
jessica:
That makes it even worse. Either you support the “earmarks” or you don’t. By attatching them to bills he doesn’t vote for, shows that he doesn’t care one way or another. He’s trying to have it both ways. “I brought home this money for a nursing school, of to promote Texas shrimp” , then on the other hand he says “I’ve never voted for an earmark in my life”. AGAIN, put these earmarks in stand alone legislation and see if they can get passed.
jessica, so you’re saying that adding earmarks not associated with the original bill is fine as long as you don’t vote for your own earmark? That’s rediculous.
No. This is just how our government works.
And if you give the President a Line Item Veto he would just be furthr usurping the powers of the legislativre branch.He would just use it to play favorites and create political ruin for his rivals. You will create more corruption like this than you will end.
Not at all, I questioned this when I first heard about it.
Paul actually votes against spending bills. Earmarks determine how the money will be spent, but the SPENDING BILL determines if the money will be spent. Look at it carefully, Ron Paul is attaching earmarks to bills he almost always votes against. He’s actually voting against the bill and his own earmarks, the earmarks are only there in case the bill passes, that way at least his district will get a share back, that his constituency paid in their federal taxes to spend on “their” priorities.
His record speaks for itself, according to Citizens Against Government Waste, Ron Paul is rated at 95% for the year 2006 and 82% lifetime in voting against wasteful spending..
EDIT: Actually it doesn’t.. has he voted in favor of these bills with the attached earmarks? NO.. if he did, then that would make him a hypocrite..
He does this to attempt to return some portion of his constituents taxes back to them in the form of government programs..
EDIT: It seems you’ve already formulated an opinion. Ron Paul personally opposed to earmarks, but will still represent the wishes of his constituents even when they go against his own personal beliefs.
Isn’t he a Representative in the House? Are Representatives supposed to represent their constituency on the federal level? Is it hypocritical to actually do your job?
Thank God someone sees what I see. I fought this fight all day long yesterday with Paul supporters. I couldn’t figure out why someone would endorse, apply and even write up things and then turn around and vote against them. So now that I’ve thought about it for 2 days, this is what I think. He votes against it ONLY because he knows the budget with all the “pork” in it will pass anyway. Therefore, he gets to keep his talking point as well as gets all the “pork” for his district. If he was legit and principled he would not request $1 million in “pork” if he actually believed his own bs that his supporters eat up.