Archives for 2009

Hypocrite, I think it is:

According to an analysis by the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense, Mississippi has won the earmark contest in the omnibus budget package.

Mississippi Republican Sen. Thad Cochran led his colleagues by raking in more than $470 million in 204 earmarks. Mississippi’s junior Republican, Roger Wicker, pulled in more than $390 million. The totals can’t be added together because the figure includes earmarks each received solo and with others, so the same earmark could be in both senators’ column. Cochran, on his own, pulled in roughly $76 million and Wicker brought home $4 million.

Cochran’s $76 million ranks him sixth among solo earmarkers. (Earmarks can be requested individually, with other members of Congress or along with the president.)

Senate Democrats and Republican ate roughly the same amount from the government trough on a solo basis, although Democrats have one and half times as many members. Democratic members secured about $677 million in individual earmarks; Republicans brought home $669 million. Those solo figures, however, don’t tell the entire story, because about six billion more was requested by groups of lawmakers.

I guess it is not quite time for the Republicans to break out those dusty “Fiscal Conservatism” foam fingers. Not only are earmarks less than 2% of the total omnibus bill, but Republicans are responsible for half of them (and this does not even take into account how much those states pay in taxes as compared to how much they receive nor does it note the fact that the minority party- Republicans- has a higher percentage of earmark per Senator). No doubt Michael Steele and Bobby Jindal will take to the airwaves to point out that Republicans have still “lost their way.”

What Is The Word I Am Looking For?Post + Comments (53)

There’s been a lot of discussion on many of the internets about Republicans’ increasing use of the word “socialism”. Mark Leibovitch writes:

It seems that “socialist” has supplanted “liberal” as the go-to slur among much of a conservative world confronting a one-two-three punch of bank bailouts, budget blowouts and stimulus bills. Right-leaning bloggers and talk radio hosts are wearing out the brickbat. Senate and House Republicans have been tripping over their podiums to invoke it. The S-bomb has become as surefire a red-meat line at conservative gatherings as “Clinton” was in the 1990s and “Pelosi” is today.

Watching CNN this weekend, I heard Tom Price (R-Georgia) twice use the phrase “from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” to describe Obama’s budget proposal. I have to wonder: what proportion of the CNN audience — let alone Price’s wingnut base — knows that that phrase came from Karl Marx (Price mentioned that it did, but that was obscured by the flourish with which Price repeated the phrase)? I also have to wonder if such a benign-sounding phrase is going to scare anyone. If you’re going to get commie with people why not say that Obama’s budget was the financial equivalent of banging your shoe and shouting “we will bury you” or of sending tanks into the streets of Prague?

Another phrase we’re hearing a lot of is “cradle-to-grave welfare state”. For people who can’t afford prenatal care or are worried about their 401(K), that probably doesn’t sound too bad.

I’ve got to think there is some way for Republicans to put a scarier face on socialism. Invoking Stalin is probably too over-the-top, and ABBA doesn’t seem to frighten people as much it used to. So I ask all of you: if you had to find something scary to say about soc ialism what would it be?

Update: Please put a space between “c” and “ialis” in your comments so as not to trigger the spam filter.

First as tragedy, then as farcePost + Comments (125)