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Time for the Guv to morph into Chris Christie (6/28/2011)

Time for Gov. Walker to talk more about the cake (3/4/2011)

Today, reality hits home (3/1/2011)

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Brown County Executive candidate forum Feb. 8 (1/28/2011)

Education done right (1/27/2011)

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• Kohl includes $500,000 for community health care….
• Kohl directs funding to Wisconsin dental health programs
• Kohl secures $2.2M for Wisconsin Wld Waterways Project 
• $1.47M investment for Walnut St. redevelopment in Green Bay… 
• Kohl secures $10.7M for Green Bay area waterway….

 And on and on it went.

Congressman Petri issued a similar, though much toned down, release.

On the other side of the issue, Congressman Sensenbrenner was indignant at the brazen “half-trillion dollar behemoth of a bill…”

Today’s NY Times includes a brief, but must-read analysis of the whole earmark and budget debacle. Almost 9,000 earmarks, many not ever read by anyone but the congressmen’s staffers, included in something like a 1,350 page document. Grrrrr.

“I can’t wait to put out a press release to tell people what I have done,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate and an earmarker of long standing.

Earmarks served another purpose besides granting bragging rights back home. Lawmakers of both parties say the $555 billion spending measure, which provided $70 billion for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan along with the money for nearly every federal agency, could not have been approved without the incentives provided by little things like $7.5 million to stage the Special Olympics in Boise.

“If they had taken the earmarks out, it would not have passed,” said Representative Mike Simpson, the Idaho Republican who won the Special Olympics money and ended up backing the bill that his own party leadership portrayed as excessive.

“Addictions are hard to break,” said Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, who had to concede that many of his colleagues were just not ready to join him in taking the anti-earmark pledge. 

Of course, Representative Kagen’s announcement also had to include the war disclaimer - “Before completing action, the House approved the amendment that provides $70 billion in funding for continued military operations in Iraq. The amendment was opposed by Congressman Steve Kagen.”

And at the bottom of each of the eleven Kohl press releases was a little line that was some version of:

“The Interior Appropriations Bill [fill in the blank with the name of the proper section of the huge bill] which contains the funding, has passed both chambers of Congress and now goes to the President to be signed into law. The project amount reflects a 1.56% [again, fill in the blank] across-the-board Administration cut in funding.”

I’m sorry that your project amount had to be cut – but so did everybody else’s in this very, very, very messy process we call budgeting here in Washington. Give me a break.

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