Mississippi captured the number one spot on one of the most embarrassing lists around.
Senator Thad Cochran - "Pork King"
Fox News reported today that Senator Thad Cochran Leads Congress In Earmarks. Yes, the king of pork is Sen. Thad Cochran. Each year a group named Citizens Against Government Waste publishes a list of the top congressional earmarkers. Cochran is typically a leading pork-seeker and in 2010 had his name on 240 projects worth $490.2 million dollars worth of earmarks. When added together the total dollar value of all the earmarked projects in fiscal year 2010 amounted to $16.5 billion dollars of the Federal Budget.
“Senator Cochran has been number one for three years in a row and his total for earmarked projects exceeds $2 BILLION during that three-year period time.” said Tom Schatz, President of Citizens Against Government Waste.
Fox News also reported today that on March 16th of this year, the U.S. Senate voted to table or set aside a vote for a ban on earmarks. In other words, by a vote of 68-29, the Senators voted against considering the proposal to ban earmarks proposed by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). So, a yes vote meant that the Senators DID NOT want the ban on earmarks. If you click the link above you’ll see a list of how all the Senators voted. If you scan the list, you’ll see that Mississippi Senator Thad Cochran and Mississippi Senator Roger Wicker both voted to table the ban on earmarks. Which sort of makes sense when you realize that Cochran is the leading pork specialist.
It seems to me that if the United States is broke and we are almost $13 Trillion dollars in debt, maybe it’s just that Cochran doesn’t think that 1/2 billion here or there will be missed in the greater scheme of things, but that’s the basic problem we face. Every Senator and every Congressman from every state is more concerned about bringing home the bacon and getting re-elected than about doing what is good and right for our Country. As you can see from the story, every little 1/2 billion adds up to more than $16 BILLION worth of earmarks in a single fiscal year.
Until a majority of the people in every state understands that the pork our elected officials try to grab as “free money” for their state comes from the taxes collected from each one of us, the earmarks will continue. Unless we all stand together and tell our representatives “NO MORE!” we will never get a handle on the spending spree in Washington, D.C.
The fact of the matter is that until each of us whether we are individuals, corporations or non-profits decide that we will stop slurping up the goodies thrown into the trough by a Government hell-bent on giving away the wealth of this nation, we are doomed to failure when it comes to getting Washington spending under control. Supply and demand works just as well when it comes to earmarks as it does in the economy. As long was we demand government largess, there will be politicians ready and willing to supply it.
With $13 Trillion in debt, we have got to stop this destructive cycle. If an idea is a worthy idea, it shouldn’t need government support. If a company wants to research whether shrimp aquaculture will work inland, then more power to them, but do it yourselves. Every business should be investing in its future with research and development, not getting fat on corporate welfare. At some point, we’ve all got to leave our mother’s womb and face the real world. So why do so many out there still want to have their needs met by someone else?
I simply do not have an answer. Do you?
Recent reports indicate that the percentages of givers and takers in our society have reached parity. But while 50% of the people are paying taxes and it is still not enough to take care of the other 50%, because the takers are demanding more. Margaret Thatcher said it best, “…Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They [socialists] always run out of other people’s money. It’s quite a characteristic of them.”
We should be ashamed of ourselves for letting our fiscal situation to reach this point.
On January 20th, 1961 John F. Kennedy gave his Inaugural Address to the nation. I do not agree with everything Kennedy said on that day. However, I do agree with a lot of it and I think we have heard the most famous part of that speech so many times that while we can repeat it from memory, it no longer resonates in our hearts.
In the long history of the world, only a few generations have been granted the role of defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger. I do not shrink from this responsibility—I welcome it. I do not believe that any of us would exchange places with any other people or any other generation. The energy, the faith, the devotion which we bring to this endeavor will light our country and all who serve it—and the glow from that fire can truly light the world.
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.
My fellow citizens of the world: ask not what America will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
I believe that our generation is one of the few that have been granted the role of defending our freedom. And I believe it is our hour of maximum danger. I did not shrink from this responsibility, I became part of one of the grandest, most amazing grassroots organizations ever created to protest the fiscal irresponsibility of our government and our slow but apparently certain slide into socialism and despair. I still would not exchange places with any other people or any other generation. I am part of the fire that lights the world. I hope the majority of my fellow citizens are still asking what they can do for their country. I see it in their faces at every Tea Party/9-12 Group Meeting. And I hope that my fellow citizens of the world will one day understand that what we do here today on this April 15th Tax Day in America is not a protest against America, but in fact the truest celebration of what Freedom really means and a grateful expression of the precious, precious gift given to us by the Founding Fathers.
Freedom isn’t free and the first sacrifice we all should make is learning how to make our own lives in this world, rather than demanding our lives from our fellow citizens.
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