Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Earmarks


These two political cartoons are related, so I just thought I'd combine them in one post. They're self-explanatory, so I don't know what I could add. We all know that earmarks add up to almost nothing in the grand scheme of things. And cutting earmarks wouldn't necessarily cut even that small amount of spending, but only let the administrative branch of government, instead of the legislative branch, decide on where it was spent.

The fact is, I don't like earmarks myself, since they give the appearance of corruption (and sometimes even the reality of it, actually worse in Republican Congresses than in Democratic). But, to use a simile I've heard elsewhere, cutting earmarks as a solution to our budget woes is like turning off bathroom nightlights to solve the energy crisis. This is just politics, nothing more, and I resent the fact that Republicans think we're dumb enough to fall for it.

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