Congressman Bobby Schilling Disappoints

Ouch! When you find yourself siding with Senator Claire McCaskill against an icon in the Tea Party movement you know you're having a bad day. Senator McCaskill has outed Congressman Bobby Schilling as an earmark appropriator. McCaskill is a born again reformer at least when other legislators actions, if not her own are the focus but it looks like she nailed Bobby Schilling dead to right. From the Washington Post:

The report highlights a request from Rep. Robert T. Schilling (R-Ill.), one of the 13 freshmen who sought earmarks, McCaskill said.

The report says Schilling added a $2.5 million earmark for Quad City Manufacturing Lab at the Rock Island Arsenal in Rock Island, Ill., for the “development of innovative manufacturing techniques and process for munitions and weapons systems.”

Schilling’s request matched the language in an earmark to the federal research facility by his predecessor, former representative Phil Hare (D), the report said.

Andie Pivarunas, a spokeswoman for Schilling, said the request is not an earmark because the funds will be awarded by the Army through a competitive process. She said the funding request was made by Schilling in response to a “policy recommendation” from the Quad Cities Chamber of Commerce, which asked for federal funds for the laboratory. She said that if the funds are allocated and the lab applies for funds, Schilling would “hope the lab would receive fair consideration under the program application guidelines.”

When Schilling was campaigning against Hare, he wrote an Oct. 17, 2010, op-ed piece for a local online news site that said: “We need earmark reform that improves transparency, roots out corruption and eliminates wasteful spending. My opponent never met an earmark he didn’t like.”

Congressman you have to walk the walk.