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1. Thank You Tom Coburn
2. Omnibus Spending Bill Loaded with Earmarks and New Spending
3. Senator Ethanol, the Young Guns, and the Politically Expedient
4. A Tea Party Earmark for Paul Revere
5. The Secret Ballot Protection Act & What the Right is Missing with the Card-Check Scam
1. Thank You Tom Coburn
Senator Tom Coburn has had an early Christmas gift handed to him in the form of the Ominous Omnibus. Coburn, perhaps best known for making fools of the big spenders in Washington, is doing it yet again.
He has set up a database where you can dig through and find all the corruption, greed, and lunacy in the Omnibus.
If this doesn’t pass by Saturday, according to the good senator, the government shuts down.
Perhaps we should let it. Go here now to call your Senator. Tell him to vote no.
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2. Omnibus Spending Bill Loaded with Earmarks and New Spending
What do you call the Senate’s Omnibus Spending Bill? An Earmark Bonanza — An Earmark-A-Thon — The Earmark-bus. Clearly, this bill is an outrage to the taxpayer and conservative Senators.
The Senate is about to vote on an Omnibus Spending Bill funding the federal government for the year. House and Senate appropriators crafted a bill in secret and, just yesterday, provided text to Senators and the American people. The bill is 1,924 pages long and it will cost you $1.25 trillion, including $8 billion in earmarks. This appropriations measure is loaded with pork barrel projects, ObamaCare spending and other items on the liberal wish list.
Conservatives are outraged. Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Jim DeMint (R-SC) are expected to make the Clerk of the Senate read this 1,924 appropriations bill. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has identified 6,488 earmarks. Here is a review of what people are saying about this end of year appropriations measure.
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3. Senator Ethanol, the Young Guns, and the Politically Expedient
Senator John Thune took to the Senate floor yesterday to criticize his fellow 2012 presidential contenders for playing politics with the Obama-Kyl tax deal.
“It is easy to stand on the sidelines and criticize this deal,” Thune said. “And it would perhaps be politically expedient to stand on the sideline and criticize this tax deal. But to advocate against this tax deal is to advocate for a tax increase.”
It certainly is not.
None of the conservatives opposed to Obama-Kyl, including myself, want tax rates to go up on January 1. However, we are simply unwilling to accept the party line that the best deal we could get includes a mammoth 13 month extension of unpaid unemployment benefits (thus caving after a year-long fight on the principle of paying for such extensions), an extension of current tax rates that conveniently ignores the resurrection of the death tax, and a package of tax extenders that includes all sorts of giveaways for big business.
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4. A Tea Party Earmark for Paul Revere
Paul Revere received a $400,000 earmark in the Omnibus Spending bill – well at least his house did. The Paul Revere House received an earmark, thanks to Congressman Mike Capuano (D-MA). It is ironic that the Tea Party movement has risen up to fight against out of control government spending, yet the elites in Washington, DC think it appropriate to soil the name of an American Patriot by funnelling federal money to the Paul Revere House.
Here are three Massachusetts Earmarks that will make your head spin . . .
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5. The Secret Ballot Protection Act & What the Right is Missing with the Card-Check Scam
Sometimes people can’t see the forest through the trees and, while pointing this out among allies during a war being waged by union bosses on the American workplace gives no great pleasure, a gentle prodding is necessary. Here it is: We need to move past the hyperbole of card check.
Once the new Congress is sworn in, card check will not happen legislatively for at least another two years, period. And, more importantly, there is a way to end the entire card-check argument once and for all by garnering support for and passage of the Secret Ballot Protection Act [let the union-bought Democrats oppose secret ballots openly and publicly]. In the meantime, there are more imperative issues to deal with that are undermining workers’ rights and jobs, while fattening union bosses’ wallets.
Please click here for the rest of the post.
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