Earmarks: Keeping On

Radio Blogger Transcript:

"HH: I appreciate your flying back from D.C. to do this show, because now finally...I can talk with Dreier about the rules, but you're on Financial Services, you're on Veterans Affairs, and you're on the floor voting on these things, not yet in the leadership. And so, I am confounded, befuddled, by what happened this week on the spending stuff, and I want you to walk our people through. What is going...why are you people spending money like drunken sailors?

JC: I think it's actually just...I'm going to give you the conclusion before we get to it. We need a spending limit, and we need a line item veto. And I'm not sure that anything else is going to stop it, just because of the way that Congress works with individual...with so many members and so many interest groups. Let me just give you a few examples. I've been in Congress now just over 90 days. Not a long time, right?

HH: Right.

JC: Brand new guy. Just came in. Had 63 requests for earmarks.

HH: No.

JC: 63 requests. And they only had 60 days to get to me.

HH: Where do they come from?

JC: Everything from a number of private contractors looking for defense money. You know, we have this thing and it's really good, and it'd be great for the national defense. The Department of Defense unfortunately doesn't recognize that. So if you can get us $3 million or $4 million dollars, we can create this thing."

Sometimes politics is downright discouraging, eh?