Swine Before Pearls

As faithful perusers of this space know, I am only a casual "pork-buster" - not because I'm soft on earmarking, but because pork barrel spending is not the core fiscal problem but simply an outward symptom of the true bane on our body politic, a behemoth of a federal government that grew completely out of control decades ago.  I support measures like Senator Jim DeMint's one-year earmark ban because, I suppose, you have to start somewhere.  And it is good politics.  But given the direction of the current political winds, nobody should have any illusions about progress being made on this front any time soon.

As a case in point, take the past thirty-six hours.

Senate Majority Chisler "Dirty Harry" Reid utters one of his copyrighted idiocies when asked about this subject:

“As we look back in history, the Founding Fathers would be cringing to hear people talking about eliminating earmarks,” Reid said, noting that the Founders dictated in the Constitution that all spending should originate in Congress, not the executive branch.

Leave aside the fact that no "pork-buster" is challenging the constitutionally-mandated origin of government appropriations.  Which is, of course, the strawman behind which Senator Reid was attempting to hide his stirring extollation of his party's orgy of self-aggrandizing corruption.  Ponder the slur he's hanging around the necks of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, et al, men who put everything they had on the line for their country, who pledged their "lives, treasures, and sacred honor" for freedom, liberty, and independence.  Sure, Washington and Jefferson owned slaves, Jefferson was banging one of his, and Franklin was a dirty old man and dabbler in the occult, by some accounts.  But what NONE of them was was corrupt, nor did they see their cause as fighting for the right and ability of the eventual recipients of their legacy two-plus centuries later to confiscate the incomes of honest, hard-working, risk-taking American taxpayers and squander them on moehair subsidies, rock & roll museums and community centers and all manner of extraneous public works with their names plastered all over them like official graffiti.

One would think that Dirty Harry's moronic blithering in defense of what public opinion polls keep saying is indefensible would earn him equal measures of scornful derision and public outrage, and put his party in grave jeopardy of losing the majorities they won in 2006.  Certainly it would seem that they would be motivated to pass measures like Senator DeMint's one-year earmark moratorium, even if only as an election year fig leaf/PR stunt.

One would be wrong - about both.

After making a curiously public show of rejecting an attempt to make the Bush tax cuts permanent (and thus voting in favor of the biggest tax increase yet in American history), the Barney Fife doppelganger chose to hide his party's shafting of the DeMint moratorium literally in the dead of night:

Senate Republicans complained Thursday that a high-profile vote on a temporary earmark ban would be pushed back until late in the night, limiting press coverage and possibly preventing presidential candidates from voting on the measure.

According to the office of Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), Republicans asked Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) to schedule the vote earlier in the day so that their presumptive nominee, Senator John McCain (AZ), could cast a vote before returning to the campaign trail. But Reid declined, saying the vote wouldn’t occur until around midnight Thursday, if not later, according to DeMint aides.

“The porkers are throwing the kitchen sink at the earmark ban, using every trick to stop it,” said Wesley Denton, a spokesman for DeMint. “The white-knuckled grip on their pork would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic. Americans won’t be fooled.”

Mayhap they will and mayhap they won't.  Mr. Denton and his boss had better hope they will, and ought to be grateful for the cloaking of Reid's midnight vote - given the bipartisan margin by which it was rejected:

Even the entreaties of the three senators running for president weren’t enough to persuade their colleagues Thursday to curb their appetite for earmarks — the practice of designating federal dollars for pet projects.

Senators soundly rejected a one-year moratorium backed by the presidential hopefuls — Republican John McCain and Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton — even though it put senators from both parties at odds with their presidential contenders.

The vote — 29 in favor of the proposal, 71 opposed — again demonstrated the enduring popularity of earmarks, even though they have figured prominently in recent congressional scandals, including one that landed former Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham of Rancho Santa Fe in prison.

It also underscored the conflicting political interests of the presidential candidates — who see a strong stand against earmarks as a way to show fiscal discipline — and their Senate colleagues who see bringing home the bacon as a way to show constituents they are getting something back for their taxes.

Assuming B.O. and the Empress were the only Donks voting "yea," the would mean that twenty-two Republicans - three short of a majority of the GOP Senate caucus - opted to keep their trunks buried in the bacon grease, slurping up every last drop they possibly can.  Not something that I would think Senator DeMint and like-minded pachyderms would want to advertise to a base that - so the conventional wisdom goes - helped cashier their own majority not two years ago for that very reason.

I've never quite bought into that notion.  I frankly think there's quite a bit to the opposite conclusion that voters look upon "pork" as being everybody else's "wasteful spending," not their own, which they enjoy as much as their representative and senators revel in larding it on them.  Not unlike how everybody always says they hate Congress but love their own senators and congresscritters.  There's a reason, after all, why incumbents are overwhelmingly re-elected, and pork-barrel spending is a great deal of it.

Whether due to majority public approval of the Democrats' pro-pork stand, or center-right anger at so many 'Pubbies cringing from standing against it, I cannot help but connect the aforementioned dots to this one:

A difficult week on the recruiting front has further prevented the committee from playing much offense in 2008, as wealthy candidates in New Jersey and South Dakota opted out and the window for recruiting top-tier candidates has apparently passed in most of the NRSC’s top-targeted states.

Ensign said about half of the Senate’s forty-nine GOP members are “not even close” to being on pace to raise the amount of money they are expected to for the committee and fellow candidates. The members are expected to raise between $750,000 and $3 million, depending on seniority and stature…

The filing deadline for two other targeted races, Iowa and Montana, is Friday and Thursday, respectively, and no major or well-funded candidate has yet signed up for either one.

With the West Virginia deadline already passed, the committee is basically limited to recruiting in New Jersey and South Dakota. It has less than a month, though Ensign said he hopes to have an answer from a candidate in the latter this weekend…

Ensign could have to defend upwards of 12 Republican-held seats in November, as Democrats have landed solid candidates in even some long-shot races.

Some conservative voters are still livid that the GOP surrendered to the porkers years ago and are doubtless still bound and determined to completely destroy their own party and drive all its members from office until it, and they, "learn their lesson".  Or until those voters learn the axiom about biting off one's own nose to spite one's face.  In this case that's taking it to self-decapitation levels.  Still other voters heartily approve of "bringing home the bacon" and Senator Reid's "refreshing" embrace of it, as opposed to what they probably consider the "phony" disavowals of pols like Senator DeMint.

Between both ends, it sure does look like the congressional GOP is caught in the middle, with no place to go but down.  The rejection of the DeMint moratorium can not unfairly be described as helping "grease" those skids.