Thursday, January 27, 2011

Sherrod Brown: Porker of the Month

Guest posted by Bytor

Congratulations, Senator! For continuing to insist on funding* for GE to develop an engine that nobody wants, you've won a prize! Despite both the Obama and Bush administrations, not to mention the Pentagon, saying that this alternate engine project is a waste of money, you pressed on anyway.



With George Voinovich winning the award just two months ago, it seems this is becoming a problem for Ohio's Senators. For this reason, and others, not too many conservatives shed tears at Voinovich's retirement.

The news isn't all bad, though. Our new Senator, Rob Portman, voted for the GOP Senate caucus ban on earmarks.

Our federal government has a spending addiction that is a serious problem. Rob Portman gets that. Sherrod Brown doesn't.

*UPDATE: A new earmark is not the basis of CAGW award, as is usually is the case with CAGWs Porker of the Month. Rather, an insistence from the 3 Senators to Defense Secretary Gates that Congress WILL spend this money despite strong opposition from the Pentagon and the threat of an Obama veto.

It's still unnecessary pork spending, at a time when the electorate is clearly calling for measures to deal with the record trillion dollar deficits that we have had since the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006.

Both parties are guilty of earmarking in the past. But one has almost unanimously sworn them off going forward in an effort to exercise fiscal restraint. The other doesn't see any problems and wants to keep running trillion dollar deficits for years to come.

11 comments:

  1. You mean the same GE engine supported by Rob Portman, John Kasich, Jean Schmidt, John Boehner, and Steve Chabot?

    I miss Keeling. He was so much better with his facts than you.

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  2. Bytor, you seem so much more intelligent in previous posts. How about you educate your readers on the facts and THEN spin it against Democrats.

    You're referring to the "Offshoring Prevention Act," correct?

    "Currently, U.S. companies that manufacture goods abroad for sale here at home are allowed to defer payment of federal income tax – waiting to pay taxes on foreign income in years that minimize their tax liability. The Offshoring Prevention Act would require that companies that send factories and jobs overseas play by the same rules as ones supporting jobs in the U.S., removing an offshoring incentive and helping local businesses compete."

    So...Senators who are trying to keep businesses accountable and make it harder to ship jobs and taxes overseas are a "problem?"

    But then you guys loved the RGA ads that (erroneously) faulted Strickland for the outsourcing of a rebate program.

    I also think you're off-base connecting Portman as holier-than-thou on this. What vote are you talking about? The earmark ban vote happened before he was sworn in. But here's a nugget for you...Sounds to me like Senator Portman is for investing in existing programs instead of letting them twist in the wind. Kind of what Sherrod is suggesting with his legsilation. Not earmarks.


    "When you turn programs on, turn them off and turn them back on again...it’s pretty disruptive and pretty expensive.” (“Sen. Portman visits high-tech Mason company,” Dayton Daily News, Eric Schwartzberg, 01/18/11)

    Democrats outsource bad.
    Democrats preventing outsourcing bad.

    I guess we shouldn't be surprised, Kasich voted FOR NAFTA and that's been a huge boon for our Ohio economy, hasn't it?

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  3. Of course, everyone in the US wanted GE to win the contract. But the Pentagon already awarded the contract elsewhere. It's too late.

    So, spending taxpayer money to fund a project that the Pentagon is NOT GOING TO USE is a waste.

    No, Jungdem, the awards were not related to the OPA. They were based on wasteful earmarks.

    These 3 Senators wrote the earmarks. Call that spin all you want, but those are the facts. Take it up with CAGW if you don't like the award. They are non-partisan, and go after GOP porkers just as much as the Dems.

    Jungdem, about Portman's vote, it was a vote among the Senate GOP caucus. It was a resolution on whether to ban earmarking by GOP Senators in the upcoming Congress. So the newly elected Senators had votes, since they would obviously be part of the Congress. Portman voted for the earmark ban, which passed.

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  4. Well, don't single out Sherrod then as this earmark is supported by the very same Republicans (including Portman) I mentioned.

    When is Keeling going to let you drop the "Guest" part of your title and hand the whole thing to ya?

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  5. Not so, Modern. If the Congressmen you mentioned supported it, they would have put the earmarks in a bill. They didn't.

    As it happens, everyone you mentioned has sworn off earmarking for now. So, no, they don't support it.

    I prefer to remain a "guest". If I wanted to blog full time, I'd start something from scratch. I'm happy to post here occasionally as long as I have JK's blessing. Happy birthday, btw.

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  6. Bytor - can you supply the earmark in question? The only one I can find is from 2010 that has Voinovich & Rep. Mike Turner supporting it as well. It would be a shame if you didn't call them out on it too.

    Doubtful you'll (a) be able to reign in Hal Rogers or (b) ever be man enough to post anything about the CURRENT Republicans who either support or lead the charge on the very things you accuse Democrats of doing.

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  7. Pardon me, Jungdem. There isn't a specific earmark at issue here.

    What IS at issue, is that these 3 Senators continue to insist that the Pentagon fund this project, even though the Pentagon is strongly opposed to it, as is President Obama.

    They wrote to Gates and told him basically, "we are going to spend this money, no matter what you say you need."

    One party is getting serious about the federal spending problem, and the other is not.

    http://www.wtnh.com/dpp/news/politics/pentagon-will-fund-f-35-fighter-engine-

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  8. So your issue is with the 3 Democratic Senators continuing to push NOT the bipartisian support for the engine in the first place when the Pentagon still felt the same way? (BTW my father is in defense contracts and even he says this thing should die a quick death, so the engine is not what I'm taking issue with here).

    So there's no specific earmark, just unjustified support. Perhaps you should rephrase your misleading and erroneous post, then, huh?

    One party is getting serious about the federal spending problem, and the other is not.

    So far you've been able to fleece your supporters into believing that the entire national debt is caused by greedy unions and ballooning socialist policies. I guess none of the GOPers cared when they gave the Dept of Defense a blank check, voted to raise their own pay, or, I don't know, ignored all the warnings that their big Wall Street firms were about to go belly up?

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  9. There you go, JungDem. Post corrected. Still doesn't change Sherrod's Porker award.

    He earned it! :-)

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  10. Bytor - I give you credit (for what it's worth to you). Too many are quick to judge and slow to correct.

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  11. why do conservatives insist on repeating that the midterm elections were some kind of mandate on on government spending? this is an absurd point, as everyone knows republican gains had everything to do with the state of the economy and record unemployment (which it's worth noting were caused and occassionally intentionally exacerbated by republicans with a stated goal of seeing our president fail) and very little to do with debt, which most Americans don't give two shits about.
    oh look here's some proof for my claims!
    http://www.gallup.com/poll/145790/americans-oppose-cuts-education-social-security-defense.aspx let's reduce the enormous amount of foreign aid we give--I believe it's less than 1% of our annual budget? economy rescued! that'll definitely make up for the hundreds of billions of dollars for millionaires you spent weeks behaving like toddlers to get.
    ya'll ignorant-ass conservatives might do well to emulate a strategy of basing your views on actual proof and not ridiculous republican talking points.

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