Political Quotes

“I am going to go through a description that I think will help people understand what we mean by earmarks and by the kind of a simple earmark that you might think about, and then the more complex, the more subterfuge, the more hidden ones. First of all, you have powerful Members of Congress get billions, not-so-powerful Members of Congress get next to nothing, but taxpayers pay for it all. The other fascinating process that goes on here with earmarks is the at-risk Members, that is a Member who is in a competitive district and might lose, and their political party wants to help them, oh, they bulldoze money to that Member's district. But if you have some other congressman who is secure in her District or secure in his district, well, too bad. So you better hope that your congressman is an at-risk Member of Congress because then billions of dollars will be steered to your congressman's congressional district and to your community and to the business and the jobs in that community. But if you have a secure congressman who gets re-elected each year easily, and he is not powerful, you get a fraction amount of that money or you get zero, once again. Once again, money is coming out of your pocket and being distributed on a completely inequitable basis.”