the BUFFALOg: So Much Money, So Little Time

Thursday, August 09, 2007

So Much Money, So Little Time

The Democrats took Congress vowing a return to fiscal prudence (yeah, I know), but it's been business as usual. Just this year 50 amendments have been offered in the House that would have stripped pork out of spending bills, but only one passed. The Club For Growth has issued a RePork Card listing all the representatives' voting records on those amendments.

Ed Morrissey has a re-cap.

Sixteen congressmen scored a perfect 100%, voting for all 50 anti-pork amendments. They are all Republicans.
The average Republican score was 43%. The average Democratic score was 2%.
The average score for appropriators was 4%. The average score for non-appropriators was 25%.
Kudos to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) who scored an admirable 98%-the only Democrat to score above 20%.
Rep. David Obey (D-WI) did not vote for his own amendment to strike all earmarks in the Labor-HHS appropriations bill. Rep. Obey scored an embarrassing 0% overall.
105 congressmen scored an embarrassing 0%, voting against every single amendment. The Pork Hall of Shame includes 81 Democrats and 24 Republicans.
The Democratic Freshmen scored an abysmal average score of 2%. Their Republican counterparts scored an average score of 78%.

Not unsurprisingly, Tom Reynolds voted for only two of the fifty amendments. Even less surprising is the fact that Louise Slaughter and Tom Higgins voted for just one each (I'd have pegged them in the zero bracket). Of course, we live in an area that is dependent on federal pork dollars to overcome the drag of our insanely high state and local taxes. It's so bad here that the local paper of record even judges local representatives on their ability to bring the bacon home. It's no shock that our local reps are trying to outdo each other in spending other people's money.

Long story short, don't look to Western New York to contribute to any efforts to reign in federal spending. The attitude in these parts is "bring it on".