Crush Liberalism

Reid: Founding Fathers would approve of pork

The more this asshat speaks, the more of a caricature he becomes.  From The Hill:

“As we look back in history, the Founding Fathers would be cringing to hear people talking about eliminating earmarks,” Reid said, noting that the Founders dictated in the Constitution that all spending should originate in Congress, not the executive branch. 

Yes, I’m sure that the original George W, as well as his homies Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, etc., thought that the proper role for the federal government was to pilfer taxpayer money to fund quarter-billion-dollar Bridges to Nowhere in Alaska or to confiscate darned near a million bucks of productive people’s fruits of labor to fund online courses for a NV community college.  What federal purposes those serve, I have no idea, but Reid swears that we fought the Revolution for that purpose.

Citizens Against Government Waste found a quote from Jefferson that, as luck would have it, seems to contradict Reid:

Thomas Jefferson made a similar prediction in a letter to James Madison dated March 6, 1796, challenging Madison’s proposition for improvements to roads used in a system of national mail delivery. Jefferson wrote:

Have you considered all the consequences of your proposition respecting post roads? I view it as a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of Congress & their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money. You will begin by only appropriating the surplus of the post office revenues; but the other revenues will soon be called into their aid, and it will be a scene of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always get most who are meanest. 

Then again, what does Jefferson know about what the Founding Fathers thought of pork?  It’s not like Tommy J was one of the Founding Fath…oh, wait.  Yeah, he was.  OK, never mind.

March 13, 2008 - Posted by crushliberalism | pork, Reid