Thursday, March 12, 2009

The Omnibus Spending Bill: Blantant Hypocrisy

It is easy to feign indignation and outrage, to oppose legislation you know will pass without your support.


Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Republican Senator from KY) complaining about legislative spending called the omnibus spending bill a "missed opportunity" and urged President Obama to veto the bill. Knowing full well the President would not veto the Bill, McConnell did not "miss the opportunity" to add 36 earmarks to the legislation mounting to $51 million.

40% of the earmarks came from the Republicans who opposed the legislation.


According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, of the 35 U.S. senators who opposed the omnibus spending 28 of them had solo earmarks in the legislation.

In total, these 28 senators had a combined 307 solo earmarks that mounted to nearly $240 million.

Barrasso (4 earmarks, $2.7 million)
Bayh (4 earmarks, $1.2 million)
Bennett (23 earmarks, $18 million)
Brownback (21 earmaks, $12 million)
Bunning (5 earmarks, $735,000)
Burr (3 earmarks, $1.3 million)
Chambliss (7 earmarks, $4.3 million)
Collins (1 earmark, $380,000)
Corker (1 earmark, $760,000)
Cornyn (5 earmarks, $2.5 million)
Crapo (1 earmark, $100,000)
Enzi (5 earmarks, $1.7 million)
Graham (14 earmarks, $9.5 million)
Grassley (8 earmarks, $350,000)
Gregg (19 earmarks, $10 million)
Hatch (7 earmarks, $700,000)
Hutchison (35 earmarks, $9.9 million)
Inhofe (34 earmarks, $53 million)
Isakson (2 earmarks, $1.4 million)
Kyl (3 earmarks, $5 million)
Lugar (10 earmarks, $3.3 million)
Martinez (8 earmarks, $18.8 million)
McConnell (36 earmarks, $51 million)
Roberts (11 earmarks, $2.2 million)
Sessions (12 earmarks, $4.3 million)
Thune (6 earmarks, $4.3 million)
Vitter (16 earmarks, $4 million)
Voinovich (6 earmarks, $13.5 million)

All of the earmarks combined accounted for less than 2 percent of the legislation.

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