It seems from the statement of the theater owner that the bill did not pass, or at least passed without that earmark. It would interesting to see how many of Paul's earmarks got passed in that the dems control the congress.
If half plus of the congress did what Paul does, then voila, problem solved.
Till then, inobody is perfect, especially one who can get elected.
It's indeed true that nobody's perfect, but Mr. Paul
is, to be charitable, quite far from perfect -- and
still has no chance of getting elected. His latest
poll numbers have him polling in the GOP primaries
with a statistical goose egg. . . a performance that
the last three LP presidential candidates have all
beaten handily.
I submit that Libertarians should hold higher
standards than Democrats and Republicans!
Cheers,
Brian
--- Philip Berg <philip@...> wrote:
It seems from the statement of the theater owner
that the bill did not pass, or at least passed
without that earmark. It would interesting to see
how many of Paul's earmarks got passed in that the
dems control the congress.If half plus of the congress did what Paul does,
then voila, problem solved.Till then, inobody is perfect, especially one who
can get elected.
From: Brian Miller
To: lpsf-discuss@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2007 5:17 PM
Subject: Re: [lpsf-discuss] 2) TX: Paul has a
penchant for porkPut another way, to clarify the situation. . .
Let's imagine that I become the Libertarian
nominee for House of Representatives for the SF
district (god help us all!).As a result of Cindy Sheehan splitting the left
wing vote off of Nancy Pelosi, and a surge of LP
support, I pull out a plurality of the vote and Mr.
Miller, (L)- San Francisco, heads off to Washington.In the budget battle, I rage against pork and
unconstitutional spending. I then insert dozens of
earmarks -- a bailout for our hub airline, United
Airlines; a new universal socialized medicine bill
for the citizens of San Francisco; generous R&D
subsidies for Oracle; and $100 million for
government housing for the poor.Knowing full well that the bill will pass, I vote
against it and declare my disgust with the federal
government.Who is ultimately responsible for taxpayer funds
going to United, socialized medicine, Oracle, and
subsidized housing in San Francisco?And if it's outrageous if I did that as a
Libertarian congresscritter, why is it acceptable
for Ron Paul to do it as a Republican who we're
supposed to admire and want to put into the White
House?Cheers,
Brian
Brian Miller <hightechfella@...> wrote:
It's not misleading, it's simple fact -- he put
more
earmarks in for his district than Hillary
Clinton put
in for all of NY state (and also beat his
Houston area
colleagues).The whole "but I voted against the bill" is
dishonest
too. Paul knows the bill is going to pass --
inserting earmarks into a bill he knows is going
to
pass is grabbing pork for his district,
regardless of
his symbolic "no" vote.We rightly slammed Nancy Pelosi for her symbolic
resolutions (and her acquiesence to a blank
check for
the Iraq War, despite voting against her own war
funding bill). It's hypocrisy for the Speaker of
the
House to insist that she "tried" but failed to
end the
war funding when she allowed the final bill to
come to
a vote without prejudice and cast a symbolic
vote
"against" it. It's BS, and we shouldn't let Paul
get
away with it either.All of the rest of Paul's rationalization in the
article is a big steaming pile of BS. The whole
"I'm
just trying to get taxpayer money back to the
taxpayers" would be a legitimate argument if Ron
Paul's earmarks were all tax refunds for
taxpayers in
his district.They are not. They include a theater
restoration,
free advertising for a major campaign
contributor's
shrimp business, and loads of other Republicrat
nonsense. That's not "returning money to the
taxpayers" -- that's taxpayer-funded
big-government
largesse.Long story short -- Ron Paul knows the spending
bills
will pass, and he gets the payola in for his
campaign
contributors and other local special interests
into
the bill he knows will pass. . . and then votes
against the bill knowing full well the bill will
pass
so that he has a fig-leaf for his big government
spending.Color me unimpressed.
Cheers,
Brian
--- Starchild <sfdreamer@...> wrote:
> Saying that Ron Paul leads the list of
Houston-area
> congressional
> representatives in making earmarks is a
misleading
> oversimplification
> of his position. As reported in the article:
>
> ---------------------------------------------
> "The way it works in Paul's office is that
local
> groups and officials
> from his district make pitches to him for
federal
> funding. The
> congressman passes along those recommendations
to
> the Appropriations
> Committee as earmark requests. Paul said he
tries to
> treat everyone
> equally and rejects few requests. He said it
would
> be unfair 'for me
> to close the door and say this is a bunch of
junk.'
>
> But in the end, Paul said, he would likely
vote
> against the spending
> bills even if they included earmarks he
sought.
>
> This month in his weekly column, Paul
expressed his
> philosophy about
> his opposition to proposed federal funding for
> embryonic stem cell
> research.
>
> 'Our founding fathers devised a system of
governance
> that limited
> federal activity very narrowly,' he wrote.
'When
> Washington does
> something it does so at the direct expense of
> taxpayers.'
>
> Paul's support of at least one earmark, the
> renovation of Edna
> Theater, was greeted skeptically by a
part-owner of
> the theater, Edna
> Mayor Joe Hermes. He noted that the
congressman
> often voted against
> spending bills even when they contained
projects for
> his district.
>
> 'Which doesn't make real good sense,' Hermes
said.
> The owners have
> been hoping to convert the shuttered theater,
which
> opened in 1949,
> into a place the chamber of commerce could
use.
>
> 'I hope he will not keep to the same pattern
as
=== message truncated ===