The Sunshine Empire

During the past Presidential election and since then conservatives and Republicans have railed against the imagined menace of earmarks. Adding to the budget un-needed items just for the benefit of your particular constituency at the expense of the ever exploding Federal budget. To hear them talk in their political fantasy world, if not for earmarks from only Democrats, the Federal budget would be balanced. Reality has a pesky way of proving them wrong. The facts are earmarks exploded with the arrival of Republicans to power in Congress in 1994, and they account for an almost microscopic amount of the total Federal budget of the United States. But what about now?

When the current Obama Federal budget for the Defense department was put together by a Republican Defense secretary further purchases of the F-22 fighter was cut. It’s not as if the entire program was cut. They just stated that since none of these state of the art planes have flow in one single mission over Iraq or Afghanistan, and they require 30 hours of maintenance to every one hour of flight, so no additional planes beyond those already purchased and in service would be ordered. The cuts in funding would not take one of the 187 F-22s currently in service and not above either war zone out of the air. One would think that diverting that money to other needed war-appropriate programs would be something that defense first and anti pork conservatives would be all about. One would be wrong to think that. Although Defense Secretary Gates, and Senator John McCain are against buying to add to the already 187 strong fleet of F-22, political smear merchant Senator Saxby Chambliss feels the need to give the Pentagon more money than it asked for for a program they already have enough planes for. He’s obviously not for Country first, and doesn’t give a damn about the budget deficit.

Related posts:

1. When Spending Takes A Back Seat To Politics
2. Huckabee Bears False Witness To Scaremonger On Health Care
3. McCain Looks To Duck Debate For Good Of Country
4. Socialism In America? Where’s The Beef?
5. Republican Silence On TARP And Iraq Withdrawal Telling