Earmarxist Don Young Named American Taxpayer Hero
He might be good on taxes, but he's horrible on spending
By Bluey Posted in Congress | Corruption | Don Young | Earmarks — Comments (18) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Rep. Don Young, the Alaska Republican who says he's proud to have sponsored the "Bridge to Nowhere" earmark, was named a "Hero of the American Taxpayer" yesterday by a coalition of anti-tax groups.
The award is based on a number of key votes, "which have always been primarily about taxes much more than spending," according to Americans for Tax Reform. Still, based on a previous list of winners, it paints a bad picture. Past "heroes" have included convicted criminal Duke Cunningham and Dennis Hastert, who oversaw the explosion of pork-barrel spending as House speaker.
In a press release sent by Young's office today, the lone Alaska congressman boasts, "Making sure that the hard-earned money of the American people stays in the pockets of those who earn it and not the government coffers, has always been a priority of mine."
Then, later in the day, Young's office bragged about $58 million worth of pork-barrel projects he had secured for Alaskans. "I never take the ability to get funding for these projects for granted," he said, without noting, of course, that the money comes from taxpayers like you and me.
Young has always been an egregious earmarker, but the $398 million he secured for the "Bridge to Nowhere" topped it all. In April he again came under attack from his colleagues in the House and Senate, who voted to support a Department of Justice investigation into the so-called "Coconut Road" earmark -- a pork project inserted into a bill after it had already passed.
The taxpayer hero award is one of the lone bright spots for Young in an otherwise miserable year. He finds himself under an FBI investigation for bribery and faces a tough primary challenge from GOP opponents. If he wins, he'll be a target of Democrats in the general election. Even the GOP's nominee for president, John McCain, a strong earmark opponent, has ridiculed Young's spending habits.
So why on earth would Americans for Tax Reform, American Shareholders Association, Alliance for Worker Freedom and the 60 Plus Association call him a "Hero of the American Taxpayer"? It probably has something to do with the generous rating system, and the fact that votes against tax hikes weigh more than votes for spending increases. By comparison, another taxpayer watchdog, National Taxpayers Union, gave Young a 55% rating.
This one will go down as a doozy.
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Earmarxist Don Young Named American Taxpayer Hero 18 Comments (0 topical, 18 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
According to the Tax Foundation , Alaska receives 1.84 dollars for every dollar of federal taxes collected. In short, they're taking our money and giving it to states like Alaska so that despicable fellows like this can ensure themselves of a plus career. And to be lauded as a hero to boot. As I said, it's absolutely nauseating.
Of course, if thieves like this are considered heroes, doesn't that explain why nothing concrete has been done about pork barrel earmarks?
....I'm appalled that a guy as smart as Grover Norquist doesn't see that real meaningful tax reform and tax relief are directly effected (negatively) by every dollar of federal spending - whatever it goes to. I understand they focus on taxes, but doesn't he see that projects like the Bridge to Nowhere directly impacts the ability of his group to argue for lower taxes? If we didn't spend those hundreds of millions of dollars, how many percentage points could we knock off the marginal tax rates we pay?
And that doesn't even get into the whole entitlement question and the budgetary items that really make a more significant impact than the pork.
is surely a smart guy. He has also said some memorable things about government in the past ("I want govt to be small enough to drown in a bathtub" or something along those lines).
But Mr. Norquist has his own agenda, and that agenda probably encompasses more than the fairly limited anti-tax, anti-spend public face of his Americans For Tax Reform.
What other things does Norquist care about, that in some instances -- THIS instance, perhaps? -- trumped an honest assessment of Don Young (Earmarxist-AK)? I don't know, but I don't trust ANY person who's been around D.C. as long as Norquist any farther than I can throw them.
Off to google...
I've been commenting on "The Next Right" all morning. Link is below:
http://www.thenextright.com/jon-henke/right-watch-don-young-is-a-hero#co...
Also, pasting my comments here:
I'm currently the Tax Policy Director at ATR, and heavily-involved in these awards. There is no massaging or favoritism involved whatsoever. Nor do we arbitrarily remove people who are weak on spending (as Cong. Young undeniably is when it comes to earmarks).
In case you didn't notice, the "T" in "ATR" stands for "Tax." Our scorecard is heavily-weighted toward tax votes, while still trying to incorporate votes of interest to taxpayers (including spending, incidentally). We announce most of these votes prior to the roll call. This is extremely helpful to the RSC and the Republican Congressional leadership, who can use these keyvotes as leverage to keep squishy Rs in line.
Congressman Young, quite simply, voted the right way on our scorecard. Would you rather that we set up the scorecard, and then arbitrarily yank someone after the fact? The Hero of the Taxpayer Award would lose all credibility from that point forward. It's not intended as "Grover's Favorite Guys." It's a scorecard based on hard, verifiable facts.
The same is true for American Shareholders Association and Alliance for Worker Freedom. There is a set of votes, and the chips fall where they may.
If anything, detractors on this board ought to be praising ATR for having some integrity. It was a surprise to see that Don Young got a score of 90%, but we're glad he did. To see the full scorecard, click on the link below:
http://www.atr.org/content/pdf/2008/june/062508ot-houseratings_1.pdf
Look at some of the votes that went into getting that 90%:
Voted against a tax hike to "pay for" a one-year AMT patch
Consistently and repeatedly voted against tax hikes on energy
Voted for the Peru FTA, a tax cut on exporters
Voted for the GOP alternative to S-CHIP expansion
Voted against the Farm Bill
Voted against the FY 2008 budget resolution, and for the Paul Ryan budget
Most importantly to us, he has signed the Taxpayer Protection Pledge and didn't break it in 2007
In fact, Young would have received a perfect score had he signed onto letters circulated by Cong. Feeney (on taxes) and Campbell (on spending) pledging to uphold a presidential veto.
We call em like we see em. Should Don Young get less than an 85% in 2008, he will certainly not get the award. We'll see. It's up to him and how he votes this year.
--is a metric that judges Young to be a "Hero of the Taxpayer" a useful metric?
Is your issue here just with the title of the award, or the fact that he got one? The fact is that Young was perfect on tax votes last year. He was even pretty good on spending votes (farm bill, budget resolution), but this is a tax-based award. We're not saying 435 Don Youngs would be good for the House. We're saying Don Young voted right on tax votes.
In fact, Don Young has gone south on taxes in 2008. He voted for a $54 billion income tax increase to pay for the Veterans' Education bill. You can see the specific roll call below:
http://clerk.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.asp?year=2008&rollnumber=330
As a result of his Pledge violation, Don Young is ineligible to receive the "Hero of the Taxpayer Award" for 2008 (the award in discussion is for 2007). Like I said, we call em like we see em. We've made it pretty clear to the people of Alaska that he's broken his Pledge. But that doesn't change how he voted in 2007
--You can't be a taxpayer hero if you're also corrupt.
Sure you can. If you vote for tax cuts and against tax increases, you're pro-taxpayer. If you line your pockets, you're a crook. Not mutually exclusive.
--You can't be a taxpayer hero if you're intentionally screwing taxpayers
True enough. But the direct way that's measured is through tax votes. In 2007, he voted against tax increases and for tax cuts. In 2008, he didn't. He qualifies in 2007, but not in 2008.
--You can't be a taxpayer hero when you're stuffing a bill full of pork.
Sure you can. See the "corrupt" answer above. It's hard to argue that wanting to have a puny earmark in a bill is an automatic disqualifier. Even hundreds still add up to almost nothing. Don't get me wrong--I'm for an earmark ban. But do you really want support for earmarks to be a disqualifier for a tax award? We'd be giving out the award to 50 Members each year, and no one would care about our tax keyvotes.
This is a tax scorecard. We score, by and large, on tax votes. There are spending scorecards out there. I'd never say that someone great on spending but iffy on taxes or guns should be disqualified from a spending scorecard. It's insane.
--How much credibility should the ATR awards have?
Plenty. First off, we had about 170 House winners out of 200 or so GOP Congressmen. We had 50 fewer winners than last year. We announce most of our keyvotes before they happen. Transparency, hands on the table, etc. It's clean.
Second, ask your average GOP Member of Congress what handful of scorecards they pay attention to. I guarantee you he will say the ATR scorecard. He won't rank any other fiscal group nearly as high.
So, we have a selective and transparent award which moves votes in Congress. I'd call that credible.
--Does ATR want to be in the business of providing cover to guys like Don Young?
We're in the business (in this context) of scoring Members of Congress on (mostly) tax votes. Sometimes our friends get screwed. Sometimes bad actors on non-tax issues (like Young) get an award. That's the numbers. Would you rather that we set up the award, saw that Young won, and then manipulated it? That's what it sounds like to me.
My final comment is a plea to everyone. What would you have us do? Would you have us spend a year sending keyvotes to the Hill (which causes Members to vote a certain way), compile the awards, and then throw the whole thing out the window when a Don Young slips in? How do you think that would go over when we tell an office the next time that a keyvote really matters? They'd laugh in our face because they'd know the system was rigged.
I don't understand why on one hand, you tell us that you're biased toward tax issues over spending issues, but then of the six votes you list, three are spending not tax matters.
I'm also troubled that you score based on talk, including letters, instead of just on action, including votes. Anyone can sign a letter.
There are 20 votes on our scorecard. Out of those, only four (Eightmile, card check, Medicare Rx price controls, and the Feeney spending veto sustain letter) are not about taxes.
The other sixteen are signing the Pledge (twice), energy tax hikes (four times), AMT patch, Peru FTA (tariffs are taxes), S-CHIP (tobacco tax), Farm Bill (corporate tax hike included, double rated), budget resolution (tax cut expiration), Paul Ryan budget substitute (tax cuts continued), small biz tax cuts on min wage hike, two-thirds tax increase supermajority, and Campbell letter on tax hike veto sustain
That's 16 tax scores and 4 non-tax scores, or 80%. The remainder cannot fairly be called tax votes.
By any definition, I'd call 80% "mostly."
When you say the ATR scorecard is based on talk, are you simply referring to the letters or additional item?
What this means for the future of national representation in Alaska. I think a lot of the seats that the Democrats won in '06 were the result of a wave election year. Take Nick Lampson for example- I think Tom DeLay's troubles are why the Republicans lost the seat and I doubt they hold it against Pete Olson (short of a Mark Foley incident or similar, of course). Polls are showing Mark Begich competitive with Ted Stevens (link 1). Does anyone know how well Don Young is faring in polls? The only one I could find online was done in December and was commissioned by Daily Kos (link 2); take it with a grain of salt but I think it at least shows that race competitive as well. Four years ago I couldn't imagine the Republicans evening needing to put up a fight for these seats. I really wonder if this could be Alaska transforming into a state that votes one way for President and the other for Senate like North Dakota or Maine (Susan Collins isn't untouchable anymore but I think she'll retain her office).
______________________
Out with the Oak King.
The links:
(1) http://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2008/Senate/Graphs/alaska.html
(2) http://www.pollster.com/blogs/poll_research_2000dailykos_d_a.php
Can someone tell me how to embed links?
Out with the Oak King.
full of Republicans that do not know just who to vote for anymore. The Republican party has abandoned most conservative voters so either we are abandoned or we are suppose to vote for similar (like Republican) party representatives. Oh well, good luck...
Formally known as Deagle... "Golf is a way of life..."
get them the most...the truth is that it's when you are at the grassroots level that you engender good will for your group after you hit the 'big time" you are nothing more than part of the problem.
Freedom of Religion NOT Freedom from Religion
I appreciate cynicism--it keeps everyone honest. But in this case, it's misplaced.
What would engender cynicism is changing around the award keyvotes after the fact to reward our friends and punish our enemies (as some here seem to want us to do). Instead, we stood by our keyvotes, and honored our commitment. That means Young gets recognition.
I've gone into a fair amount of detail above if you are interested.
Please sign Newt's Drilling Petition. I have included a link to it in the below. Thank you.
As Executive Director of the Alliance for Worker Freedom, let me assure all of you that Don Young (R-AK) DID NOT receive a "Guardian of Worker Freedom" award with a score of 18.18% out of our ranking 11 votes.
However, Rep. Bill Young (R-FL) did receive the award with a score of 81.82%.
If you visit www.workerfreedom.org and goto our "Congressional Awards" page, you will see that only Congressmen with 80% or higher get the award. You will also be able to view the data and the votes and the caluclations.
The original link that was posted from Don Young's website even referred to the winner as Rep. Young (R-FL) which should now have been removed.
I willingly admit that a picture was taken with Rep. Young (R-AK) at the awards ceremony in the midst of all the chaos and confusion, he was ushered towards me and we did take a picture together. However, the press release his staff was given was clearly the release for Rep. Young (R-FL). At an event like that, where there are 20+ Congressmen in line for a photo, mistakes are sometimes made.
A letter was sent to both Congressman explaining the mix up. A copy of which can be seen here. Congratulations to Rep. Bill Young (R-FL).
Just....Wow.
Doesn't someone look at this and realize how bad this is?
I guess not. Then again, to the Republican establishment, maybe he is a hero.
sigh.