one example of why earmarks need to be outlawed

S

SmarterthanYou

rebel
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...ert-0218-20100217,0,640306.story?egovernemetn

Former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert has plowed through about $1 million in taxpayer dollars in the last two years for an office and staff in west suburban Yorkville, thanks to a little-known perk given to ex-speakers.

Hastert, 68, a lobbyist and business consultant who retired from Congress in 2007, has hired three of his former staffers at salaries of more than $100,000 apiece to run the publicly financed office.

Taxpayers also are paying monthly rent of $6,300 to a company partly owned by three sons of a Hastert mentor and business partner. Other public funds go for an $860-a-month 2008 GMC Yukon leased from a dealership owned by a Hastert friend and campaign donor.
 
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2953958-418/dead-grateful-2010-digitize-report.html

A new report slams $11.5 billion worth of what it calls wasteful government spending in 2010, including more than a half million dollars to digitize Grateful Dead itemes.

Sen. Tom Coburn’s Wastebook 2010 highlights, cites $615,000 in federal funds to digitize photographs, T-shirts and concert tickets belonging to the Grateful Dead. The money went to the University of California at Santa Cruz, the band’s chosen spot for an archive that is supposed to be free to the public.

“Congress continues to find new and extravagant ways to waste tax dollars,” said the Oklahoma Republican.

Also in the report: $700,000 for a study on cow gas; $200,000 to study “ambiguous” comments by politicians; $79,000 to throw a party at Brookfield Zoo for suburban flood victims; and $440,000 for a west suburban Yorkville office for former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
 
SmarterThanYou said:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/nation/2953958-418/dead-grateful-2010-digitize-report.html

A new report slams $11.5 billion worth of what it calls wasteful government spending in 2010, including more than a half million dollars to digitize Grateful Dead itemes.

Sen. Tom Coburn’s Wastebook 2010 highlights, cites $615,000 in federal funds to digitize photographs, T-shirts and concert tickets belonging to the Grateful Dead. The money went to the University of California at Santa Cruz, the band’s chosen spot for an archive that is supposed to be free to the public.

“Congress continues to find new and extravagant ways to waste tax dollars,” said the Oklahoma Republican.

Also in the report: $700,000 for a study on cow gas; $200,000 to study “ambiguous” comments by politicians; $79,000 to throw a party at Brookfield Zoo for suburban flood victims; and $440,000 for a west suburban Yorkville office for former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.
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I imagine it's in the article because it's "wasteful government spending".....still, it doesn't appear to be part of any earmarking process.....
 
That's not an earmark.

And earmarks /= "secret legislation and pork". It's a legislative directive to spend money on specific projects. This is obviously highly useful if you want to make some pork, but if you entirely abolished all the ability of the legislative branch to allocate money to specific projects, it would obviously increase the power of the executive branch.
 
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