Political Quotes

“Usually when something is killed, it stays dead. But just like a zombie movie, some earmarks refuse to die and return to life as wasteful deficit spending. That's what has happened with this bill and what my simple commonsense amendment corrects. This Congress was supposed to eliminate earmarks, but zombie earmarks from prior sessions keep appearing and reappearing and my amendment corrects that. Republicans are taking earmarks from previous sessions and calling them something else. Is that our new spending plan? Mr. Speaker, at a time when we face a massive national deficit and have limited resources to address our Nation's transportation needs, the pending measure provides billions of dollars for the construction of the Alabama Porkway and the Canadian Baconway. Mr. Speaker, even as many in Congress have sworn off earmarks, this legislation continues funding to the Alabama Porkway, a 65-mile, six- lane beltway zombie earmark, a massive highway that surrounds the City of Birmingham, costing taxpayers billions. In fact, just last year, an article in the Birmingham News cited how cost estimates have soared from $3.4 billion to $4.7 billion before construction. So costs have soared, and now Alabama wants a bailout for their zombie highway, an earmark and a bailout. Mr. Speaker, I guess the more Washington changes, the more it stays the same. The good news is, Mr.…”