Redstate

By Congressman Jeb Hensarling Posted in Congress — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Later tonight, Speaker Pelosi and the rest of the Democrat Leadership will bring an 853-page Labor-HHS/ Military-Veterans Conference Report to the floor of the House.  This bill will include secret earmarks that were inserted after both the House and Senate voted on the different spending bills included in this larger Conference Report.

What does that mean?  It means that these earmarks were not able to be seen by most of the members of the House and Senate.  Along those same lines, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Whip Steny Hoyer, and Democrat Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel brought this 853 page bill to the floor without allowing Members of Congress even a single day to read it.

Read on . . .

To put that in perspective, these Democrat Leaders have wasted 306 days trying to write and finalize a single spending bill to send to the Presidnet, yet they are refusing to allow other Members of Congress even a single day to read through the monstrosity that they have put together.   That’s right, Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, Rahm Emanuel, and David Obey are trying to force Members of Congress to spend billions of taxpayer dollars without allowing them to know what they are spending it on.  

The bill will cost taxpayers nearly $151 billion, a $21.2 billion increase from last year (+10.9%), and is 6.8% more than the President’s request. 

The Conference Report includes more than 150 pages of earmarks that would spend millions of taxpayer dollars on entities like the LBJ foundation in Austin, a Jazz museum in Kansas City, and a Craft and Folk Art Museum in Los Angeles.  In addition, the Conference Report contains secret, new earmarks that were added after both the House and Senate passed each spending bill.  And among the nine secret new earmarks that Democrat leaders are asking taxpayers to foot the bill for is the Thomas Daschle Center for Public Service ($1,000,000).

I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure what the Thomas Daschle Center for Public Service has to do with either Labor, or Health or Human Services.  Far worse, to corrupt a bill intended to fund veterans’ services with entities like the Thomas Daschle Center for Public Service is an insult to those who have worn our nation’s uniform.  I would hope that Senator Daschle would respectfully request that funding for his center be removed from this bill. 

The actions of Speaker Pelosi and this Democrat Congress are reckless. It is astounding to see the lengths to which they will go to rip-off taxpayers and American families.   In the meantime, I hope that Senator Daschle does the right thing and asks that the earmark in his name be removed from the bill.