PolicyBlog has moved!

Thank you for visiting, PolicyBlog has a new address.

Our new location is http://www.commonwealthfoundation.org/policyblog

Please adjust your bookmarks. Archived posts will remain here for now.

Thanks




Friday, February 27, 2009

Santorum: I'm Proud of My Earmarks

Former Senator Rick Santorum rips the Democrats' earmarks in the omnibus bill as "payoffs to the folks that support them"  and special interests, as well calling Obama a hypocrite for opposing pork/earmarks and now going along with the flow, then confesses he took lots of earmarks, and is "proud of those earmarks."

As I like to point out, Obama and Congressional Democrats are giving us the same failed policies of Bush, Santorum, and Republicans of recent years.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Santorum is a union loving pro-life Democrat. It is that simple.

Anonymous said...

Amen! And I am glad he no longer is Senator of PA! He is a closet RINO!

Anonymous said...

Santorum said of Arlen Specter: "He's with us when it counts."

Santorum was also quite fond of using the tax code to carrot and stick the citizens into behavior he thought worthy.

Santorum also advocated spending a larger portion of our GDP on foreign aid; echoing the words of Kofi Annan.

The man is not a conservative.

Anonymous said...

Look, no politician is perfect. I wasn't thrilled with Santorum's support for Specter (whom I despise) over Pat Toomey, funny would that be the same Pat Toomey on the CF BOD? Oh yeah, and I remember hearing the same Pat Toomey defend the post 9/11 airline bailout on Bobby Gunther Walsh's show-something I wasn't thrilled with.

Perhaps "where's Bobby" Casey is an improvement?

Nathan Benefield said...

To the last Anonymous poster:

Is Bob Casey "an improvement"? Who cares? I'm not about to waste any energy on the "lesser of two evils" argument, we are talking ideas, not politics.

Santorum was right when he said Democrats are using earmarks to reward their political allies, but he tries to make it that into a "Democrats Bad, Republicans Good" argument, until he remembers that Republicans used earmarks to reward their political allies.

Likewise, as the Cato Institute pointed out, "the amount spent on lobbying . . . is related entirely to how much the federal government intervenes in the private economy"

The point is that earmarks and big government breed corruption and cronyism, regardless of which party is in power.

Anonymous said...

Nathan, get a grip.

You can take shots at Santorum, but if he was in the Senate now, there'd likely have been another vote against the "stimulus" and its "brave new world "hurry up and die" federal medical interference.

The bottom line is Santorum isn't in office now so what's the point? Pennsylvania gets bluer and bluer with each election and his replacement is a tool of the apparatus that wants to make us the USSA. Nail the two idiots that just voted for bank robbery & grand theft auto, not the guy who can't vote for anything.

The cynical part of me wonders whether you are trying to establish non-partisan bona fides, in case Herr Waxman gets to have internet thought police he craves.

Nathan Benefield said...

Here I thought I was criticizng a Fox News pundit/Philadelphia Inquirer columnist in the war of ideas - ideas certainly shared by "the two idiots that just voted for bank robbery".

But if you want pure politics, ask yourself this - why is Pennsylvania getting bluer and bluer? You can also check out Brad Bumsted's article today that Specter "could be toast" in 2010.

Anonymous said...

He was in a perfect position to block the Medicare drug expansion and other Bush excesses. He could have rid us of Specter. Time and again he dropped the ball and it didn't buy him a single vote from the other side. Good riddance to him. If only he knew enough to shut up and stay out of the public view today.

Anonymous said...

Specter "could be toast" in 2010.

I'd rather an open (I'd say honest, I just think honest & liberal are oxymoronic) liberal democrat than a Specter.

In anycase, time for somebody new. I would support Mr. Toomey , in spite of his support for the mother-of-all-bailouts-the airline bailouts.

I'll even donate for his political Kevlar, which you can bet he'll need if he shows state-wide poll strength. You can bet the Obama cash brigades will be getting read to hit him hard and fast with their coins.