The Council for Citizens against Government Waste have now posted their review of Congress for 2007. They evaluated the 35 most wasteful pork projects of 2007 and how every candidate voted on those projects. A score of 100% percent means they voted against all projects and likewise a score of 0% means they voted for all the projects.
Obama = 18%
Biden = 0%
McCain = 100%
http://councilfor.cagw.org/site/DocServer/2007_Senate_Ratings_Final.pdf?docID=3282
^^Fyi, for those that don't know who CCAGW is, they are a lobbying group that lobbies on behalf of the tobaco industry (//%22http://www.sptimes.com/2006/04/02/Worldandnation/When_tobacco_needed_a.shtml%22) and that was involved in a fraud scheme with Abramoff (//%22http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/12/AR2006101200889_pf.html%22).
They have a very cozy relationship with McCain, and have twice supported him (//%22http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/30/AR2008053003121.html%22) and donated large amounts of money to his campaign.
Oh no! Not evil tobacco...
(http://www.adrants.com/images/obama_smoke.jpg)
You're candidates have never met a pork project they could resist. ***** about the source all you want, but voting records are voting records.
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
Oh no! Not evil tobacco...
(http://www.adrants.com/images/obama_smoke.jpg)
You're candidates have never met a pork project they could resist. ***** about the source all you want, but voting records are voting records.
ie. "You're wrong wrong wrong and I can't hear you because I have my fingers in my ears. Nyaaaaah!"
Speaking of willful ignorance, did you bother to look into either of your candidate's voting records on wasteful projects or pork in general?
Neither Obama nor Biden have seen a pork project that didn't give them wood.
Ignorance is bliss I suppose.
A vote may be a vote, but "waste" is always in the eyes of the beholder.
Was it stopping "waste" to vote to out source the Air Force to a European company, costing tens of thousands of jobs here in the US? McCain and CAGW say yes.
Is spending money on the YMCA wasteful? Maybe, but could CAGW be influenced just a bit by the fact that they lobby on behalf of the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association?
To CAGW, the antitrust case against Microsoft was waste. Surprise, surprise--they are paid lobbyists for Microsoft.
How do they determine when the taxpayer loses or wins? According to your cite, the failed amendment offered by Coburn to force Amtrak to submit quarterly reports on food & beverage sales is a loss to the taxpayer. Why? Wouldn't those reports be excessive government regulation? Is healthcare for children really "waste"? Clean water?
I am sure that I could find many, many liberal organizations that paint McCain voting record as less than stellar.
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
Speaking of willful ignorance, did you bother to look into either of your candidate's voting records on wasteful projects or pork in general?
Neither Obama nor Biden have seen a pork project that didn't give them wood.
Ignorance is bliss I suppose.
Actually, yeah, I've seen a lot of what Obama's voted for.
I think you and I have very different definitions of pork.
Waste is in the eye of the beholder, but from their voting records, it doesn't appear that anything is "waste" to this man. No government project should go unfunded, unless it's troops on the ground in combat...
Can you point to anything in Obama's record that would assure anyone that he plans on being fiscally responsible? Where has he ever taken a stand on wasteful spending? Where has he shown leadership in Illinois or the Senate to cut wasteful government spending>
Obama plans on close to a trillion dollars in new spending over the next ten years. In that same amount of time, if his policies are implemented, the deficit would increase by 3.4 trillion dollars by conservative estimates.
quote:
Originally posted by we vs us
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
Speaking of willful ignorance, did you bother to look into either of your candidate's voting records on wasteful projects or pork in general?
Neither Obama nor Biden have seen a pork project that didn't give them wood.
Ignorance is bliss I suppose.
Actually, yeah, I've seen a lot of what Obama's voted for.
I think you and I have very different definitions of pork.
Where has Obama shown any fiscal restraint?
If you support his voting record with the pork bills outlined in the document I linked to, then you have no business complaining about deficits and fiscal responsibility of any politician, but I highly doubt you bothered to read it.
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
Waste is in the eye of the beholder, but from their voting records, it doesn't appear that anything is "waste" to this man. No government project should go unfunded, unless it's troops on the ground in combat...
Can you point to anything in Obama's record that would assure anyone that he plans on being fiscally responsible? Where has he ever taken a stand on wasteful spending? Where has he shown leadership in Illinois or the Senate to cut wasteful government spending>
Obama plans on close to a trillion dollars in new spending over the next ten years. In that same amount of time, if his policies are implemented, the deficit would increase by 3.4 trillion dollars by conservative estimates.
We could start with the Iraq war.
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
quote:
Originally posted by we vs us
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
Speaking of willful ignorance, did you bother to look into either of your candidate's voting records on wasteful projects or pork in general?
Neither Obama nor Biden have seen a pork project that didn't give them wood.
Ignorance is bliss I suppose.
Actually, yeah, I've seen a lot of what Obama's voted for.
I think you and I have very different definitions of pork.
Where has Obama shown any fiscal restraint?
If you support his voting record with the pork bills outlined in the document I linked to, then you have no business complaining about deficits and fiscal responsibility of any politician, but I highly doubt you bothered to read it.
Just because he didn't vote for pork doesn't mean he didn't help enable Wall Street and this current meltdown with his support of de-regulation. Economists point to that (dereg) as a prime reason this has happened.
So now he is in favor of regulatory measures but was against them before? Is he taking a page from his running mate?
Hey, I'm listening to Obama right now. He's talking about how he's the true crusader against earmarks.
He just said that he didn't request a single earmark for 2008. The crowd is cheering, screaming, fainting and some are letting out little whimpers and tears of joy.
Again, I have to simply reefer to his senate website where he must disclose all of his earmarks, and I get close to a Billion dollars of crazy wild earmarks.
http://obama.senate.gov/press/070621-obama_announces_3/
So how can he stand in front of a crowd of people and make such statements. Do these folks have no internet, or do they just blindly follow?
I don't get it. What's the deal?
quote:
Originally posted by Hoss
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
quote:
Originally posted by we vs us
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
Speaking of willful ignorance, did you bother to look into either of your candidate's voting records on wasteful projects or pork in general?
Neither Obama nor Biden have seen a pork project that didn't give them wood.
Ignorance is bliss I suppose.
Actually, yeah, I've seen a lot of what Obama's voted for.
I think you and I have very different definitions of pork.
Where has Obama shown any fiscal restraint?
If you support his voting record with the pork bills outlined in the document I linked to, then you have no business complaining about deficits and fiscal responsibility of any politician, but I highly doubt you bothered to read it.
Just because he didn't vote for pork doesn't mean he didn't help enable Wall Street and this current meltdown with his support of de-regulation. Economists point to that (dereg) as a prime reason this has happened.
So now he is in favor of regulatory measures but was against them before? Is he taking a page from his running mate?
Pretending that regulation would have solved, or is going to solve our problems is akin to those who believe that gun bans keep guns out of the hands of criminals. It defies common sense and only serves to cripple law abiding entities.
quote:
Originally posted by Hoss
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
quote:
Originally posted by we vs us
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
Speaking of willful ignorance, did you bother to look into either of your candidate's voting records on wasteful projects or pork in general?
Neither Obama nor Biden have seen a pork project that didn't give them wood.
Ignorance is bliss I suppose.
Actually, yeah, I've seen a lot of what Obama's voted for.
I think you and I have very different definitions of pork.
Where has Obama shown any fiscal restraint?
If you support his voting record with the pork bills outlined in the document I linked to, then you have no business complaining about deficits and fiscal responsibility of any politician, but I highly doubt you bothered to read it.
Just because he didn't vote for pork doesn't mean he didn't help enable Wall Street and this current meltdown with his support of de-regulation. Economists point to that (dereg) as a prime reason this has happened.
So now he is in favor of regulatory measures but was against them before? Is he taking a page from his running mate?
Does the name Chris Dodd ring a bell? Barack Obama? Largest benefactors of contributions from AIG, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac.
The Dems had two years in power to help avert this mess. They didn't do anything except pump a bunch of horse squeeze the last couple of weeks that this is all Bush's fault.
Important DNC backers and fund-raisers like John Paulson and George Soros, have made billions betting on the collapse of the mortgage and home markets as we know it.
Follow the money trail and the greed. Why would anyone in their right mind support a candidate backed by people who are profiting off the misery of others by design. It's sick.
quote:
Originally posted by pmcalk
quote:
Originally posted by iplaw
Waste is in the eye of the beholder, but from their voting records, it doesn't appear that anything is "waste" to this man. No government project should go unfunded, unless it's troops on the ground in combat...
Can you point to anything in Obama's record that would assure anyone that he plans on being fiscally responsible? Where has he ever taken a stand on wasteful spending? Where has he shown leadership in Illinois or the Senate to cut wasteful government spending>
Obama plans on close to a trillion dollars in new spending over the next ten years. In that same amount of time, if his policies are implemented, the deficit would increase by 3.4 trillion dollars by conservative estimates.
We could start with the Iraq war.
Wow. He doesn't mind voting for studying the ejaculatory habits of Equadorial gnat flies, but he votes to de-fund troops in a war zone. Good point...
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4463696n
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4463698n
Two sides....But McCain when asked if we are in a recession sez yes, no I don't know...."
He's enraged....and he won't admit he was part of this unfolding process of depleting our capital resources. Andrew Cuomo? What a political whore. You be sure to vote for this old sick goat. You may get Sarah Palin in a year or two when McSame goes completely whack.
Obama, Not McCain, Shows Steady Hand in Crisis: Albert R. Hunt
Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- For the first time since 1932 a presidential election is taking place in the midst of a genuine financial crisis. The reaction of the candidates was revealing.
John McCain, railing against the ``greed and corruption'' of Wall Street, won the first round of the sound-bite war. He came out with a television commercial on the ``crisis'' early on Monday of last week, and over the next three days gave more than a dozen broadcast interviews. He and running mate Sarah Palin would reform Wall Street and regulate the nefarious fat cats that caused this fiasco.
It was a great start. It then went downhill as he stumbled over his record of championing deregulation, claimed the economy was fundamentally strong, and flip-flopped over the government takeover of American International Group Inc.
For his part, Barack Obama didn't come across as passionately outraged and wasn't as omnipresent or as specific.
More revealing, though, was to whom both candidates turned on that panic-ridden morning of Sept. 15, and how the messages evolved before and after that day.
McCain called Martin Feldstein, the well-known Republican economist and Reagan administration adviser, John Taylor of Stanford University, who served in President George W. Bush's Treasury and Carly Fiorina, once the chief executive officer of Hewlett-Packard Co.
Obama called former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, and former Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers.
It was a mismatch.
Towering Volcker
Feldstein, for all his intellect, was ineffective in the Reagan administration; then-White House deputy chief of staffDick Darman cut him out of important action. Volcker, first at the Treasury and then as chairman of the Federal Reserve, was a towering figure in every way.
Taylor is a well-regarded academic. In four years as undersecretary of the Treasury, he left few footprints. Summers, as both deputy secretary and secretary, left a lot.
Fiorina is smart and quick; to put it charitably, Rubin will forget more about financial markets than she'll ever know.
When it comes to governance, and either Democrat Obama or Republican McCain will inherit this miserable financial mess, the best guide is who they talked to, what they said, where they've been, and how knowledgeable they are.
Obama's record and earlier speeches belie some of his more populist rhetoric. Yet they also suggest, as do his advisers, a much more activist government role than is likely under a McCain-Palin administration.
Comfortable With Subject
Obama called for the overhaul of the financial-regulatory system and tougher enforcement well before this past week's traumas.
Detached observers who watched him last week, especially in a Bloomberg Television interview, were taken by how conversant and comfortable he was on the subject, despite his thin record. Few detached observers came away with that impression watching the Arizona senator.
Much of the re-regulatory fever focuses on the Federal Reserve and any new agencies created to clean up the fiasco. Central, however, will be a more vigorous Securities and Exchange Commission, or whatever holds that investor-protection function.
McCain displayed a sudden interest in the SEC last week when he demanded that Chairman Chris Cox be fired. When his campaign was asked if the senator had ever criticized the current commission's performance before, they failed to respond.
All For Obama
Tellingly, three former SEC chairmen, a Democrat, Arthur Levitt, and two Republicans, David Ruder and Bill Donaldson, have endorsed Obama. Levitt is a board member of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.
Donaldson, who was tapped by Bush to head the SEC, says Obama called him last year about the financial-regulatory problems. He has never heard from McCain.
``Obama has been talking about the need for better financial regulation well before this crisis hit and has done some real thinking about it,'' says Donaldson, a lifelong Republican. ``McCain comes across as someone who suddenly realized changes have to be made.''
There is a case for McCain: it's if you believe in less regulation, that the government should get out of the way and let the markets work their will.
No `Real Understanding'
``I don't think anyone who wants to increase the burden of government regulation and high taxes has any real understanding of economics,'' McCain said this spring at an Inez, Kentucky, town hall meeting, where he also declared ``the fundamentals of our economy are good.''
Until recently, he repeatedly invoked Ronald Reagan's calls for less regulation. He voted for the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley corporate-governance regulations -- then last year said he regretted that vote.
McCain isn't averse to some regulations. He has strongly championed a greater federal role in campaign finance, tobacco and boxing. In each case, he saw a clear villain -- special- interest money, a tobacco product that puts profits ahead of lives, and unscrupulous boxing promoters.
There has been little evidence that prior to last week he ever put financial firms in this category. Although he assailed excessive corporate compensation last week, McCain has opposed a tepid House-passed bill that would give corporate shareholders the right to cast a non-binding vote on compensation of top executives.
Turning to Gramm
The person he has turned to most for counsel on such matters is his ex-Senate colleague Phil Gramm. Gramm is a political Gordon Gekko, a brainy economist with a Darwinian view of markets and public policy.
It's not easy to remember what the financial world looked like 10 days ago much less 10 months ago. Decisions that will be reached after this election will be the most important since the 1930s.
Obama, as more than a few Democrats are complaining, hasn't been as quick, sharp -- or demagogic -- as they would like. McCain has been beset by deeper difficulties: an inchoate and inconsistent message that seems to reflect political exigencies more than principled convictions.
On the financial crisis, last week belonged to Obama."
(Albert R. Hunt is the executive editor for Washington at Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)
To contact the writer of this column: Albert R. Hunt in Washington at ahunt1@bloomberg.net
John McCain: "don't have long conversations."
Go vote for this old firt.