Lautenberg, Zimmer and Earmarks

by: Jason Springer

Sun Oct 05, 2008 at 05:43:20 PM EDT

I still don't think that the voting public fully understands the issue of earmarking in Congress in terms of all the intricacies in the process. That hasn't stopped candidates from trying to demagogue the issue as a standard talking point of campaigns this election cycle. Dick Zimmer has repeatedly made this statement on earmarks:

"I don't want to play the game better; I would shut it down," Zimmer said.

In the past, I have had Dick Zimmer respond to himself on this issue. This is what I wrote on Sept 7:

Very strong response on how terrible earmarks are, until he starts talking out of the other side of his mouth to defend the earmarks of one Rodney Frelinghuysen:
He said the pledge he signed "does not say I will not sponsor earmarks. It says earmarks should be transparent, they should be justified." Zimmer said that from what he sees, Frelinghuysen's earmarks comply with that criteria. You can call that the GOP bond.

So we've already pointed out the hypocrisy of Zimmer's position, but today we get Frank Lautenberg responding to the statement that Zimmer wants to shut down the process:

"I hope he will tell the truth and say he will work very hard to make sure there is no extra money brought back to New Jersey."

The ironic thing is that while Zimmer goes around with his dollar bill demonstration talking about how little New Jersey gets back from the Federal government, he proudly touts (sometimes) that he will not do anything to help change that. Rather than fix what has become a broken process by providing more transparency and other protective measures, Zimmer wants to score political points which completely contradict with another standard talking point in his stump speech. And he wonders why he isn't getting any traction.

Jason Springer :: Lautenberg, Zimmer and Earmarks