Phil Gingrey: “But at this point I want to ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle tonight, focus on these three charts, posters…”

“But at this point I want to ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle tonight, focus on these three charts, posters, if you will, that I've got because I think this is so telling in regard to why I said, at the outset, when we started talking about this problem, that this is bipartisan. This is a bipartisan problem. It needs a bipartisan solution. When we were in the majority, maybe doing the exact same thing, business as usual in regard to what the gentleman from New Jersey just pointed out, and in the way these earmarks are handed out with sort of, first, if you are one of the fortunate 65 that sit on the Appropriations Committee, whether you are in the minority or the majority, especially if you are in the majority, you get a much, much, much, much bigger bite at the apple, the earmark apple, than some rank- and-file Member on either side of the aisle that is part of the 'obscure caucus' that sometimes we refer to. That is not right. That is absolutely not right.”