Replies

“Just to save everyone some time, here is the latest fight between the Paulistias and the anti-Paulistias on his earmark comments.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2204751/posts";

My post #101 in that thread:
The appropriation/earmark process is rather confusing. I googled this to see if I could also understand a little better. This is from Wikipedia (I don’t know how reliable Wiki is...):
“Earmarking differs from the broader appropriations process, defined in the Constitution, in which Congress grants a yearly lump sum of money to a Federal agency. These monies are allocated by the agency according to its legal authority and internal budgeting process. With an earmark, Congress has given itself the ability to direct a specified amount of money from an agency’s budget to be spent on a particular project, without the Members of the Congress having to identify themselves or the project.”

So, it sounds to me like the money has already been allocated to a budget in the appropriations process and earmarks direct how part of that budget is specifically spent. Voting “no” on the appropriation and then adding earmarks for your constituents does not seem to be a contradiction or hypocritical.