| In what has become something akin to a broken record, Scott Garrett was the lone NJ Representative to vote for something. In this case, the vote was to preserve $165 million of bonuses paid to AIG employees who were responsible for nearly bringing down the entire company.
With our tax dollars.
This would be bad enough in and of itself, as half of ALL House republicans voted against Garrett on this, but if you look at the hypocrisy that is Scott Garrett, it makes it even worse. This man claims to be a "budget hawk" when he votes against the stimulus bill (which would bring thousands of jobs to the district) or when he votes against things like mortgage relief for struggling families or health insurance for children or raising educational standards - but he has consistently voted for never-ending billions for Iraq with no oversight.
And now, this.
So this same man who brings close to zero dollars to the people of his district - not through earmarks (even though NJ is last in the country in money received from the Federal Government relative to what its citizens send in tax dollars), not through votes on bills that would help the economy here - is one to vote for letting $165 million of our tax dollars go unchecked to those who had a huge hand in creating the financial crisis that this country, state and district now faces.
Just think about the number of jobs or number of households facing foreclosure (with 2 out of the top 4 (and 3 of the top 8) counties in the entire state in number of foreclosures during January), or children without healthcare, or number of crumbling roads in the district that could benefit from $165,000,000 which Garrett would rather see go to people who don't live in the district in return for screwing up the economy.
This isn't a "budget hawk". This is someone who is beholden to corporate interests and not the people he is supposed to represent. |
