The road to Washington is paved with broken campaign promises. But few are so rich in hypocrisy as those of House Republican freshmen caught engineering hometown pork even as they vow to slash the federal budget for the supposed good of the nation. In March, just months after being sworn in, 22 of them plumped for more military spending in their districts than President Obama requested.
Representative Steven Palazzo, of Mississippi, who campaigned fiercely against earmarks, voted to slash military spending and then voted for an amendment to quietly restore the same money, including $150 million for a warship to be built in his district. Pork? Earmark? No, he insists, saying he merely voted for a package that happened to include that hometown goodie and the Pentagon now must decide how to finance it.
These gyrations have been detailed by The Times’s Ron Nixon, who found nearly two dozen Republican freshmen pushing hometown projects ultimately worth billions.
Representative Tim Scott, a Tea Party favorite from South Carolina, helped secure the down payment on a $300 million harbor dredging project back home. Not at all pork, said Mr. Scott, pronouncing the dredging a matter of the national interest. In the case of a new bridge in Wisconsin, Representative Sean Duffy reasons it’s no earmark since the legislation listed no specific costs.
Representative Michele Bachmann, Minnesota’s three-term incumbent and presidential aspirant, also supports the bridge — and calls for a “redefinition” of what an earmark is. “There’s a big difference between funding a teapot museum and a bridge over a vital waterway,” is Ms. Bachmann’s head-scratching guidance.
