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Monday, January 9, 2012

Ron Paul is a hypocrite

  So Andy Roth for the Club For Growth says that Ron Paul is "spectacular" on cutting spending and reducing debt in our country. Rick Perry has the best plan, according to Roth.
  But the truth about Ron Paul is that he's a dishonest man; he claims to eschew earmarks, saying he never votes for them.
  Well, that might be true. He doesn't vote for them. He proposes the earmarks, then abstains or votes against them when they come up.
  From Ricochet:
Paul made over $157 million in earmark requests for FY 2011, one of only four House Republicans to request any earmarks. Additionally, he made over $398 million in earmark requests for FY 2010, again one of the leading Republican House members. These earmark requests include:
  • $8 million from federal taxpayers for Recreational Fishing Piers.
  • $2.5 million from taxpayers for "new benches, trash receptacles, bike racks, decorative street lighting."
  • $2.5 million from taxpayers to modify medians and sidewalks for an "Economically Disadvantaged" area.
  • $2.5 million from federal taxpayers for a "Revelation Missionary Baptist Community Outreach Center."
  • $38 million in multiple requests for literacy programs to "encourage parents to read aloud to their children."
  • $18 million from federal taxpayers for a Commuter Rail Preliminary Engineering Phase (light rail).
  • $4 million from federal taxpayers for the "Trails and Sidewalks Connectivity Initiative."
  • $11 million from federal taxpayers for a "Community-Based Job Training Program."
  • $2 million from federal taxpayers for a "Clean Energy" pilot project.
  • $5 million from federal taxpayers in order to build a parking garage.
  • $1.2 million for a "Low-income working families Day Care Program"
  • $4.5 million from federal taxpayers for a new Youth Fair facility.
All of the above earmarks can be found on Paul's own congressional website. While Paul does not digitize the requests prior to FY 2011, they're still available as PDFs. Paul typically will make the earmark request, but then votes against or abstains from voting on final passage, so he can maintain his claim to have "never voted for an earmark", even the earmark requests he himself made. He defends the practice here.
  Apparently Mr. Roth doesn't know this. 

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