There are apparently no limits at all to Republican hypocrisy. Just when you think you have seen
the height of Republican hypocrisy, I promise you another Republican will come along and
say, hold my beer. That's definitely not a Bud Light. What we have right now is we have
five Republican members of Congress who back in 2021 after Democrats said, we're going
to allow ear, ill allow earmarks in legislation. Again, five Republican members of Congress
signed a pledge, and one of them even wrote an op-ed for Fox News saying, by God, we will
never under any circumstances ask for earmarks because this is pork, this is garbage. This
is a waste of taxpayer money. And of course, as one of them put it, it basically means
that members of Congress are treating the federal budget as their own personal piggy
bank to go and buy votes in their district.
So it should come as absolutely no surprise to learn that those five Republicans who signed
the no earmarks pledge have now requested $175 million worth of earmarks in this year's
budget. Those five Republican lawmakers happen to be Byron Donalds, Lance Gooden, Andy Harris,
Marjorie Taylor Green, and the op-ed author herself, Lauren Bobert. Let me read you a
little piece from bobbitt's. Op-ed earmarks are counterproductive tools for entrenched
politicians to shut down debate and buy votes. Now, more than ever, politicians need to remember
that for all their talk of accountability, they are accountable to American voters who
are not going to stand for this charade. Tax dollars are not politicians, personal wallets,
and they should stop treating them as such.
And then Bobber turns around and says, please gimme all them earmarks. I need it from a
district right now. Listen, there's a lot of cons with earmarks, but at the same time,
when we get rid of earmarks and federal legislation, do you know what? Your district doesn't get
federal money to do things, right? Isn't that kind of why we need these representatives
in Congress? Like they should be fighting for more earmarks for their districts, just
logically speaking, because those are projects that that come to your actual district. They
come to your neighborhoods, they fix things, they build things, they employ people, they
generate economic activity, earmarks. Maybe I'm on an island by myself with this, but
earmarks to a certain degree are actually good. Wouldn't you much rather have $10 million
spent in your district building a new Y M C
A building, a new community center, fixing roads and bridges? Wouldn't you rather have
that money spent in your district than spent buying missiles and bombs to go drop on a
country you've never even heard of? I mean, I would. I, I think that's a winning deal.
I drive around my city, Matt Gates' district every single day. I know which potholes to
avoid. I know which roads not to take because they're crumbling and they could ruin your
car's, tires. I would much rather see money coming in here to fix those things than to
kill people halfway around the world. Earmarks are not always evil, and sometimes when Republicans,
hell, sometimes even Democrats like to paint things in these big, broad strokes that everything
has to fall into a specific category of good or bad. There's nothing in between. No, everything
is in between. There are varying degrees of everything. Stop being absolutists and understand
the fact that earmarks are good for your constituents. And if you don't believe me, then maybe you
ought to ask these five Republicans who have decided to become massive hypocrites and demand
175 million for their five districts so that they can pander to their voters by actually
getting some things done.