Proper Earmarks

I have decided that the idea of “earmarks” now meets with my approval. The definition, as we have come to understand it, will be changing, however.Governmental earmarks can be defined as the repulsive practice of attaching irrelevant and costly additions to bills. Without the presidential line item veto, these “porkers” are constantly and wildly added to please the “congress-people” and to insure their “support” for the bill in question. Occasionally they are added to insure a bill’s failure. Never mind that the original bill is now as oversized as Ted Kennedy’s boxer shorts or as irrelevant as Dhimmi Carter.

Under my revision, the taxpayers will now “earmark” where their tax monies will go. It is an attempt to cut out the middleman otherwise known as our “public servants”, our “elected officials.”

Every year when the IRS determines the amount of my earned income I can do without involuntarily, a list will pop up. From this list, I, as the “victim”, can choose where my tax monies will be appropriated.This is how it might look: A “Monument for Vietnam War PROTESTORS.” No thanks, unless it resembles a porta-pottie. An “Eco-friendly hybrid only highway in Oregon.” Nope. Another “Art display mocking Christianity.” Negative. Another trillion in “Homeless confidence boosting and relief.” No way. Another B-2 bomber. OK, I am in. A “Great homosexuals in history” museum in San Francisco. Not on your life. A “New frame for the AIDS quilt.” Wrong. A “Nuclear warhead targeting Iran.” That’s a go. What’s not to like about the idea?What taxpayer wouldn’t “feel” better knowing his or her favorite “project” had their personal stamp of approval? Wouldn’t the taxpayer also rejoice knowing that the vile, the wasteful and the subversive all vanished due to being “under funded”? It might also lessen the sting the taxpayer inevitably “feels” on April 15^th, that is if the “feelings” of anyone other than the liberals were of any importance. I would love to go visit “my warhead” and I might even leave a tip for the employee in charge of shining the “Iran Eliminator.” It would be a great way to abort the bloated, undeserving programs that the government should never have been funding in the first place. Everyone would reject this type of rubbish if we were just given the opportunity to jettison any of it. So they secretly fund this type of gibberish through the earmarking of a now three thousand page, three gazillion-dollar bill that started its life as a simple one paragraph request for a stop sign at a busy intersection in Butte, Montana…

The repulsive redundancy of the federal, state and local governments all grasping for tax dollars and the inability to remove “pork barrel” addendum’s makes for a dangerously wasteful endeavor. Efficiency is out of the question, just sequester more taxes. We apparently need more accountants and fewer attorneys within the government.

If the line item veto has no chance of ever being enacted, can we try a different approach? All bills from this point forward, will be submitted with one issue or topic alone. No hitchhikers, no riders. With each bill addressing one issue, the bills will be less overwhelming to the rest of us. Hopefully this will lead to more unemployed attorneys whose existence is strangely “justified” as they keep each other busy, unnecessarily complicating and polluting, anything and everything they come in contact with. It’s in their job description along with the mandatory absence of scruples and standards.

Almost every earmarked item stealthily attached to any unsuspecting bill has this one common trait. If each earmark were submitted as a “stand alone” bill, the vast majority would not even be presented out of sheer embarrassment and the remainder would fade away before the ink has dried on the parchment.

Why do I feel that it is necessary to cut out the middleman? Let’s face it, our “public servants” campaign for our votes, but when they are “out of sight, out of mind”, strange things happen to the promises they made. A two to six year term allows these politicians ample time to cause considerable carnage. Upon entering the city limits of D.C., our “voice” is drowned out by the politician’s new best friend, the “lobbyist.”

It is difficult to single out the most malignant of these characters, the politician or the lobbyist, but I will give it a bash.

Politicians do something that I will never understand. They spend millions of their own dollars fighting for a job that will pay them hundreds of thousands of dollars less in “up front” take home pay.

For the sake of argument, our hero is “Senator Deep Pockets.” We shall also assume that a Senator is paid $150,000 a year and he will complete one term in office for a six-year salary of $900,000. Potential Senator Deep Pockets throws $10,000,000 of his own money into the campaign. Deep Pockets personal stake breaks down to $1,666,666 a year with a yearly salary of $150,000, for a shortfall of $1,516,666 a year, personal investment to salary. Let us assume that I am Deep Pockets investment counselor and he tells me he is “investing” $10,000,000 for a total potential return of $900,000 or a loss of $9,100,000. I would immediately request that Deep Pockets up the dosage of his medications and begin looking for a new investment counselor. You would have to conclude that my client is certifiably insane or there is more “compensation” here than meets the eye.

I am not an investment counselor but that is exactly what Katherine Harris did during her Senatorial bid in Florida and she is by no means alone. Jon Corzine spent $60,000,000 on his Senate seat in 2000. Your next thought probably is, “He earned a lot of money as the chairman of Goldman Sachs prior to going into politics, that is where the millions came from.” That only reinforces the point. Why would you leave a job where you have earned at least $60,000,000 in “mad money” and then throw that tidy sum towards a job paying $150,000? It is the equivalent of Babe Ruth leaving “Murderers Row” and tossing all of his disposable income at the opportunity to be the team’s equipment manager.

Is the itch for “public service” that intense? Public service does not pay that well..on the surface. Scratch that, CERTAIN public service jobs do not pay that well.

It appears that the best thing that can happen to your political career is for it to end. Then you can segue into becoming the “lobbyist” or the “guest speaker.”

Example: Bill Clinton. Clinton shills for the country of Dubai and is getting a hefty sum to do it. Clinton was paid $300,000 for one speech in the UAE, and that was just the “up front cash.” No telling what he got “under the table” and I don’t mean from some Middle Eastern Monica wanna-be. He is not alone at the “lobbyist trough.” Ex Senator Bob Dole, Rep. Tom Downey (D-NY), and Carol Browner (Former Clinton EPA, now gooning for Madeline Albright, another Clintonista.) are all UAE lobbyists.

As an “ex public servant”, you have “influence” with the sitting “public servants” which gets you a front row seat when it comes to legislation that stands to put coin in your “employers” pocket. Our “public servants” control the purse strings containing trillions of tax dollars. “Lobbyists” buy votes with lots of “cash and prizes” supplied by their “employers” who pocket fat federal contracts and bags full of our tax dollars. The Gargantuan size of the government allows these “employers” to overcharge (AKA: Steal.) ridiculous amounts and rarely are they taken to task for it. Even those tasked with overseeing overspending are probably “rewarded” for looking the other way.

Randy “Duke” Cunningham was actually decent enough to prepare a “bribe menu”, the up front costs for his votes, available to the highest bidder. Many acted as though Duke was an aberration. I would think that with a 2.7 trillion-dollar budget ($2,700,000,000,000!! Now grab YOUR check book, compare balances and see who REALLY should to doing a little “belt tightening”..), there are a vast number of “public servants”, past and present, getting fat. Can we cut the bull and drop the “public” from “servant”? They are “serving” themselves all the while having the audacity to say that I am not paying enough in taxes. If I may change the quote a bit, “POLITICS is the FIRST refuge of the scoundrel.”

From earmarks to politicians to lobbyists, it does not matter who is in office or whether that office is a federal, state or local one, the screw hurts just as bad regardless of who is turning it, and turn it they do.