Filed under: News
"No more business as usual in Washington!"
"No more unnecessary government spending!"
These were the rallying cries of dozens of Tea Party-affiliated politicians who won their respective House and Senate races last month. Despite these political assertions, all sorts of Tea Party promises were broken on the government spending front in 2010 by members of the Tea Party Caucus in Congress before the midterm elections:
Members of the Congressional Tea Party Caucus may tout their commitment to cutting government spending now, but they used the 111th Congress to request hundreds of earmarks that, taken cumulatively, added more than $1 billion to the federal budget.
According to a Hotline review of records compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste, the 52 members of the caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010, the last year for which records are available. ...
Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.), for one, attached his name to 69 earmarks in the last fiscal year, for a total of $78,263,000. The 41 earmarks Rep. Rodney Alexander (R-La.) requested were worth $65,395,000. Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) wanted $63,400,000 for 39 special projects, and Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) wanted $93,980,000 set aside for 47 projects.Rep. Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.) takes the prize as the Tea Partier with his name on the most earmarks. Rehberg's office requested funding for 88 projects, either solely or by co-signing earmarks requests with Sens. Max Baucus (D) and Jon Tester (D), at a cost of $100,514,200. On his own, Rehberg requested 20 earmarks valued at more than $9.6 million.
The earmark thing isn't really a surprise, because compromise on this issue has been a point on contention within the GOP since Obama took office. And yet, 40% of the earmarks tied to the stimulus package that the GOP decried as a colossal waste of taxpayer money went to.... wait for it.... Republicans. I've never quite understood why any politician would be against rewarding the very people who put him/her in office with common sense projects like highways, community centers, and schools. For every Bridge to Nowhere, there are a thousand examples of money well spent. But hey, a promise was a promise. And despite putting up a united front to "fight porkulus," the Tea Party Caucus has already done a sleight of hand by doling out goodies to their home states, even while promising to fight pork during midterm campaigns.
There's also the small matter that some of these same Tea Partiers who promised to reign in government spending are eerily silent about the President's compromise with the GOP that's going to add an additional $900 billion to the oh-so-crucial deficit (more than the much derided stimulus package), thus making rich people even richer. Where are the protests? Where is the outrage? Where are the misspelled, quasi-racist signs?
So again, promises of "a new day in Washington" have been revealed to be more of the same ole' Washington. Congrats Tea Party Nation, you did it. What exactly "it" is, remains to be seen.
Jay Anderson is a freelance writer from Washington, DC, whose work has been featured in the Washington Post and on NPR. When he's not busy talking smack here, he runs the award-winning blog AverageBro.com. Follow him via Twitter @AverageBro.