Comments on: The Road to the Bridge to Nowhere http://commentsfromleftfield.com/2008/09/the-road-to-the-bridge-to-nowhere Wed, 08 Feb 2012 16:39:52 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1 By: Kyle E. Moore http://commentsfromleftfield.com/2008/09/the-road-to-the-bridge-to-nowhere/comment-page-1#comment-42435 Kyle E. Moore Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:48:20 +0000 http://commentsfromleftfield.com/?p=5000#comment-42435 That's a very good point, Adam on pork being essential to small towns. If you want, you can write a more fleshed out version of that, and I'll let you do a guest post on it. That’s a very good point, Adam on pork being essential to small towns.

If you want, you can write a more fleshed out version of that, and I’ll let you do a guest post on it.

]]> By: Adam http://commentsfromleftfield.com/2008/09/the-road-to-the-bridge-to-nowhere/comment-page-1#comment-42433 Adam Wed, 10 Sep 2008 01:36:15 +0000 http://commentsfromleftfield.com/?p=5000#comment-42433 I suppose that I'm not surprised at how much traction it's gotten in the media since he's been pushing it so hard and so repetitively, but it's about time somebody called John McCain on his weird obsession with earmarks. Putting aside the fact that earmark spending has little if anything to do with the current financial crisis we're facing and that pork is dwarfed by current military budgets, there is not really anything inherently wrong with earmarks as long as they're used ethically. The way the government currently works, they're essential to securing necessary funding. And here's the ironic part - it's ESPECIALLY necessary for the small towns to which the Republicans have recently decided to devote their message. Alaska would seem to be the perfect example, as even such an oil rich state has a very small population and therefore a very small tax base, and needs the federal funding from earmarks for basic public works. It seems to me that the solution to the very real problems with earmarks is not necessarily to do away with them, but rather to reform the current system by emphasizing transparency and openness. But this seems to me to be something that McCain could do just as easily from the Senate floor as from the White House - that is, he could if he was able to get his own party behind his own legislation. Reform would be welcome, and needs to come, but McCain's blustery rhetoric has painted his campaign into a corner. Just because politicians like Sarah Palin abuse the earmarks system, does not mean that it should be done away with entirely. I suppose that I’m not surprised at how much traction it’s gotten in the media since he’s been pushing it so hard and so repetitively, but it’s about time somebody called John McCain on his weird obsession with earmarks. Putting aside the fact that earmark spending has little if anything to do with the current financial crisis we’re facing and that pork is dwarfed by current military budgets, there is not really anything inherently wrong with earmarks as long as they’re used ethically. The way the government currently works, they’re essential to securing necessary funding. And here’s the ironic part – it’s ESPECIALLY necessary for the small towns to which the Republicans have recently decided to devote their message. Alaska would seem to be the perfect example, as even such an oil rich state has a very small population and therefore a very small tax base, and needs the federal funding from earmarks for basic public works.

It seems to me that the solution to the very real problems with earmarks is not necessarily to do away with them, but rather to reform the current system by emphasizing transparency and openness. But this seems to me to be something that McCain could do just as easily from the Senate floor as from the White House – that is, he could if he was able to get his own party behind his own legislation. Reform would be welcome, and needs to come, but McCain’s blustery rhetoric has painted his campaign into a corner. Just because politicians like Sarah Palin abuse the earmarks system, does not mean that it should be done away with entirely.

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