Lend Me Your Earmarks
Expect this story to be repeated many, many times over after this year's midterm elections. Brian Bilbray, the former Congressman (and lobbyist!) who saved the 50th district of California for the GOP in this month's special election, had spent barely a week back in the Capitol before reneging on a pledge to ban earmarks.
Despite these strong words to clean up the earmark process, Bilbray promptly voted YES on the T-THUD appropriations bill yesterday, which contained over 1500 earmarks ($), most of which weren't even in the final bill, but secretly hidden in committee reports.
Plus, he voted NO and NO and NO and NO on each of Jeff Flake's anti-pork amendments.
Of course, the pork issue had almost nothing to do with Bilbray's victory. He won, as he told reporters, thanks to his commitment to kicking every Mexican out of the country at the point of a rusty pitchfork.
Back in April, Jacob Sullum wrote about the unstoppable nature of pork spending.