Neil Cavuto Busted Peddling Liberal-Smack On Rand Paul
Yesterday on Cavuto – Neil Cavuto’s program on the Fox Business Channel – Neil fell hook, line and sinker for a liberal smear that originated from the Wall Street Journal. The smear (lie) – Rand Paul had “flip-flopped” on earmarks, despite not having cast one single vote (he hasn’t even been sworn in yet) – manifested from Matthew Kaminski, then was slightly fabricated more by Veronique de Rugy over at National Review. The smear went unchallenged from the inexperienced Rand Paul staff as bloggers took shots at Rand Paul throughout the day, but by the time CNN’s Anderson Cooper wanted to “keep them honest,” Paul’s staff released a statement. However, the issue of earmarks seems to have a lot of “journalists” and interested onlookers confused, I’ll try to shed some light on that as we go along. Rand Paul has not changed his position on earmarks, and Neil Cavuto needs to correct the record (and next time go to the horse’s mouth). Kaminski and de Rugy are hacks, I don’t expect any standards from their kind.
First let’s look at the relevant part of Matthew Kaminski’s fictional piece in the Wall Street Journal:
Father and son, age 47, have different styles. Asked what he wanted to do in Washington in a Wednesday morning television interview, the senator-elect said that his kids were hoping to meet the Obama girls. He has made other concessions to the mainstream. He now avoids his dad’s talk of shuttering the Federal Reserve and abolishing the income tax. In a bigger shift from his campaign pledge to end earmarks, he tells me that they are a bad “symbol” of easy spending but that he will fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork, as long as it’s doled out transparently at the committee level and not parachuted in in the dead of night. “I will advocate for Kentucky’s interests,” he says.
I’ve highlighted the only direct quote, which is taken out of context, as it’s only a snippet. Because Rand Paul said he would advocate for Kentucky’s interests, Kaminski’s somehow constructs that to be a flip-flop on earmarks, and a direct indication of Paul wanting to sneak on pork-laden earmarks in the dead of night. Did I miss something? Is Kaminski a fiction writer?
The bulk of the paragraph is Kaminski’s “wishful” thinking – his own summaries. Kaminski claims there is a big “shift” from Paul’s campaign pledge, but that is not accurate. I’m going to assume Kaminski didn’t read the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste’s (CCAGW) No Pork Pledge – the pledge Rand Paul took and signed – or Kaminski doesn’t understand what is generally referred to as the “earmark process.” Because the only pledge concerning earmarks Paul has taken is the CCAGW’s No Pork Pledge. Rand Paul has also called for “reforming” the earmark process, but that’s pretty vague and tough to smear, even for the Wall Street Journal.
What is an earmark?
From CCAGW:
The terms “pork” and “earmarks” are often used interchangeably, but they are different. The term “earmark” generally means any expenditure for a specific purpose that is tucked into a larger bill. Only when the earmark is inappropriately added to the bill is it considered pork. Although there is no universal definition for “earmark,” an analysis by the Congressional Research Service identified 15,268 earmarks in the non-emergency appropriations bills for fiscal 2005.11 By comparison, CAGW’s 2005 Congressional Pig Book identified 13,997 pork-barrel projects in the same bills.
Precise terminology is essential for holding Congress accountable for the reforms that are needed to fix the budget process.
Generally when you hear a fiscal conservative (Neil Cavuto) or a Tea Party member decrying earmarks, they’re referring to the “pork-barrel earmark process” not budgetary spending that has transparency; and goes through the proper committees. Ironically what we know as the “earmark process” didn’t start being so corrupt until the 1980s.
From CCAGW:
The term “pork-barreling” was coined in the late 19th century to compare the rush toward a pile of tax dollars to the way slaves would crowd around barrels of salted pork at meal times.
Even as federal power vastly expanded during the twentieth century, Congress did not earmark extensively until the 1980s. Instead, Congress would fund general grant programs and let federal and state agencies select individual recipients through a competitive process or formula. The House and Senate Appropriations Committees named specific projects only when they had been vetted and approved by authorizing committees. Members of Congress with local concerns would lobby the president and federal agencies for consideration. The process was aimed at preventing abuse and allocating resources on the basis of merit and need.
Today, Appropriations Committee members arbitrarily pick winners and losers by earmarking funds for specific recipients. Rank and file members, backed by an army of lobbyists, bypass authorizing committees and lobby appropriators directly for pet projects.
The CCAGW’s No Pork Pledge – the pledge that Rand Paul took – targets earmarks that meet the following criteria:
A pork-barrel project is a line-item in an appropriations or authorization bill that designates funds for a specific purpose in circumvention of the normal procedures for budget review. To qualify as pork, a project must meet one of seven criteria that were developed in 1991 by Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) and the Congressional Porkbusters Coalition:
• Requested by only one chamber of Congress;
• Not specifically authorized;
• Not competitively awarded;
• Not requested by the President;
• Greatly exceeds the President’s budget request or the previous year’s funding;
• Not the subject of congressional hearings; or
• Serves only a local or special interest.
The pork label is not a subjective judgment of a project’s merit. Rather, it refers to lapses in the procedures erected by Congress to review and consider the wise expenditure of taxpayer dollars.
Pork projects are usually slipped into large spending bills without debate, competition, or input from the relevant executive agencies. The provisions are often not subject to a separate vote in the House or the Senate and frequently appear in legislation only hours before Congress votes on appropriations bills. Furthermore, pork projects are not subject to performance standards and there is no disclosure requirement for a project’s recipient or its sponsor in Congress.
So there is a question of semantics when dealing with earmarks, as every state is entitled to some decree of funds from the federal government – we do all pay taxes remember? Most government spending could be defined as “earmarked” spending, but only “pork-barrel earmarks” have been the target of reformers, like Neil Cavuto and Rand Paul!
Rand Paul is not calling for an end to all government spending, he calls for us to spend what we take in. In 2009 Rand Paul favored $2.4 trillion worth of federal government (the amount we raised in revenue), he favors allocating spending for projects, based on need, within the concept of a balanced-budget.
Finally while Neil Cavuto and left-leaning “journalists” throw Rand Paul under a bus before he even casts a vote, you would think they would attempt to understand what the American public is actually talking about when it comes to being against earmarks, huh? Especially considering Neil Cavuto claims to be against them too!
