Steny Hoyer's pork is "good pork"
(Pork Barrel Spending in Nancy's drained swamp.)
By Mark Kilmer Posted in Congress | Earmarks | House Democrats | pork | Steny Hoyer — Comments (13) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
House Dem Leader Steny Hoyer is an earmark kind of guy. According to the Washington Post, the Maryland Congressman is "one of the top 10 earmarkers in the House for 2008," who has singlehandedly "tucked $96 million worth of pet projects into next year's federal budget, including $450,000 for a campaign donor's foundation."
It makes me want to croon a variation on an old song by The Ramones:
Steny is a pork pimper.
Ste-ny is a pork pimper.
Steny is a pork pimper, now-ow-ow-ow-ow.
(Maybe you'd have had to have been there.)
Josh Shultz at The Real Blog zeroes in on one of the most interesting bits of Steny pork, involving a company which isn't sure what it does besides donate to Steny.
But Steny tells us that Steny pork is "good pork."
(Read More for… well, more.)
From the WashPost piece linked there and above:
Consider the $450,000 that Hoyer inserted into a 2008 education spending bill for the California-based InTune Foundation Group, whose Web site describes it as a music-education nonprofit group.
In 2005, InTune got a previous earmark for nearly $500,000 to develop lesson plans on funk music and Nobel Peace laureates. Asked recently how effective that program had been, Education Department officials said they didn't know. InTune hadn't turned in a report on what it did, officials said.
Funk music and Nobel Laureates? Kewl! "Play that funky music, Eric S. Maskin!" (Maskin shared the '07 Economics prize for his part in laying "the foundations of mechanism design theory."
Check out the Post story. The outfit is a fraud who asserted that it didn't complete the 2005 report, due in 2006, because on of them got sick. No kidding.
Although he didn't know that InTune had ripped off the taxpayers in '05, Hoyer decided to give them more money for next year because, he said:
"I thought it was a program that would be a positive program." He said that he understood it would involve music education nationally and at the National Music Center in downtown Washington -- "that's how it was described to us."
InTune's director, Eugene Maillard, told that paper he didn't know how it was going to spend this year's Steny pork:
"It might be music camps. It might be lessons. It might be how to be a DJ. It might be how to create a television show," he said.
That's quite a variety. Does InTune know how to do any of this? How many deejays are there these days? Will InTune be responsible for the next Wayne's World?
So many questions.
Here's an answer from the Post:
Maillard, his current and past In Tune associates and their families contributed at least $31,000 to Hoyer's political action committee from 2004 to 2006, Federal Election Commission records show.
And there are other such Steny contributors who received Steny pork. The paper lists ManTech International as another example, and we're told that Hoyer thinks of Steny pork as "good pork."
This is Nancy's Congress, folks. Perhaps she's drained the swamp and forced her disgusting creatures into inhabited areas.
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Steny Hoyer's pork is "good pork" 13 Comments (0 topical, 13 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Simply put Steny Hoyer is a corrupt idiot. He has no support on the left- hes a sellout, on the right- well the pork is a pretty easy example, or the middle- hes corrupt and has no true convictions.
Whatifidontwanna- I agree with your points one and two, but instead of point 3 I would argue it would be more effective to just ban adding earmarks in the dead of night. My issue with number 4 is just that a VERY small number of earmarks are actually necessary, but there are probably still too many to hold a full committee hearing on each one. Even 100 extra committee hearings would be a ridiculous waste of time.
you're right on Steny.
My list wasn't comprehensive or entirely what I believe. I just like the idea of trying little things that wouldn't raise the cocnern of the rabid porksters, but neuter them.
I am in favor of all earmarks going away forever...so however we get there is fine by me.
I just feel like there are a couple good ones in the thousands of wasteful earmarks. And this is coming from someone who would probably be considered liberal by most people on this blog, even though I personally consider myself pretty moderate.
liberal and conservative is based on where others stand when they evaluate you.
Just end the earmarks... that's all Congress has to do. But there doesn't seem to be critical mass yet for that to happen.
When I was in Seattle, I was a raving Reactionary Conservative... now that I'm in Texas, I'm pretty much a RINO... so who knows really.
If there were people who were concerned with ethics over party, and this country over party, people like Steny would be gone. But I think the law in Maryland forbids the people of Maryland to vote R.
and we had a Republican Governor, but he lost re-election in 06.
and he had a 60% approval rating too... but there were clearly enough people who thought they couldn't vote for him simply because he was a Republican.
near the end of his term as he started strong but ended pretty weak and made some critical mistakes in governing.
Yeah, you know the one. She has been trading in pork for campaign money to the tune of half a billion:
http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Hillary_Clinton_500_000_000_in_porkbar...
Hillary is the embodiment of what is wrong with politics today.
such notables as Richard Armitage, and Richard J. Kerr. Surely this couldn't be the same Kerr of YouTube fame and Republican Debate Speechmaker fame?
Richard Kerr... not General Keith Kerr.
and granted pork to the company which outed Valerie Plame ?!?
'T was non-sequitur, and I hope you're here at RedState to be serious.
I think there should be a raft of legislation put forward by the Pork Busters.
1. A law, not a House or Senate rule, that forbids any company getting an earmark sponsored by a member cannot contribute to that member's campaigns or PACs. Also prohibit members from adding earmarks for areas not in their district. (Why is Steny giving nearly a million dollars to a CA firm? To help Nancy out?)
2. Revise the budget act and require a 3/5 or 3/4 majority to wave the budget act in regards to final passage on an earmark.
3. Pass a budget rule that any member and remove an earmark in the exact same way they add them, in the dark of night.
4. Eventually ban any and all earmarks that haven't had a committee hearing or approval/needs review of the Executive Department that portion of the budget is responsible for.