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To: GunRunner

How about not send it there in such large gobs. The money doesn’t stay in Washington. It goes there because Washington needs it to support all the pet projects that each lawmaker brings home to his district or state, as well as gigantic entitlement programs, and a military that has been known in the past to spend hundreds of dollars on a hammer. Tax less. Spend less. Simple enough.

It requires a little discipline on the part of lawmakers. They bring pork to their district so that they can use it as a plus for their reelection campaigns. Many of them run unopposed. Those that do have a race to win are in office. Their opponents are not in a position to outspend them in the halls of Congress. So to win reelection, they can instead enact wise laws, support limitations on government spending, make lofty speeches.

Or they can appropriate pork based on the erroneous supposition that the money starts out in Washington and will stay there if they don’t bring home the bacon, and that’s the way the game is played, whether Texas is giving more than it’s getting or getting more than it’s giving.


33 posted on 09/01/2011 12:57:23 PM PDT by Eleutheria5 (End the occupation. Annex today.)
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To: Eleutheria5
Pork is less than 1% of the federal budget. Taxation does not exist to fund pork; pork is a tiny offshoot that Congressman and Senators use, like you said, to help in their reelection campaigns.

But I don't understand why you think Paul's district should be the only one that doesn't receive anything.

Tax less. Spend less. Simple enough.

I honestly can't think of one Congressman who has lived up to that principle more than Paul, regardless of whether or not he makes earmarks. The money has already been taxed. Whether or not Congresspeople send it back to their district will have no effect on the rates of taxation.

His non-interventionism is much too spiced with hippie pacifism for me, but I can't seem to sympathize with your point about earmarks. I completely understand why he puts them in there, and why votes against the appropriations bills that contain them.

40 posted on 09/01/2011 1:53:35 PM PDT by GunRunner (***Not associated with any criminal actions by the ATF***)
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