Nancy Pelosi’s New Direction
Until 2006 Republicans had twelve years of control of the Congress. Before that Democrats control Congress for 49 years. 49 years of corruption. So much corruption that in 1994 Democrats were swept from power by an angry electorate, the “Contract with America” and the Republican theme, “Culture of Corruption.”
The more things change the more they remain the same.
“There’s a new Congress in Town,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lead her party to electoral victory in 2006 using the Gingrich play book. Why, she even retooled the corruption meme, by which, she battered Republicans senseless with her own version of the 1994 “Contract” of course you know it as a “New Direction.”
Promising a new open honest government was enough to convince the American people to hand over both houses of Congress to the Democrat Party hoping for major reforms in our government.
So did Pelosi and her fellow Democrats live up to their promises. Did they end the corruption, bribes, kickbacks, and corporate influence on Capitol Hill?
Well, we do have some spiffy new House rules that Rep. Pelosi and Democrats voted into the house to end Congressional Republican corruption. So is corruption ended in Washington D.C.?
The Democrat controlled House and Senate passed measures requiring lawmakers to certify they have no financial interest in the request, as well as attaching their name to it and identifying the recipient. Until this year, Congress didn't require disclosure of earmark sponsors. [Is this helping to reform Congress?]No! The new rules aren't uniform and they were never meant to stop corruption. They were only meant to give you and me the impression that Democrats wanted to end earmarks and other corrupt practices in Congress, not only that, some congressional panels make it difficult to track down specifics about an earmark. But other than that are the new Congressional rules working?
Has the “Culture of Corruption” ended because Democrats are in power? Again no, corruption has only changed directions, a new direction, a direction from Republican corruption to Democrat corruption. And this is the change that Pelosi promised? It’s too bad but in spite of their promises the Democrats are no better than the Republicans!
- Different Rules
The rules may have changed for sure, but the only change in Congress is Democrats re-taking the mantle of “A Culture of Corruption.”
For example, the House Appropriations Committee provides the information in reports available online, although they aren't searchable by keyword. What's more, details about the projects are scattered throughout the documents. Is this the open government that Pelosi promised?
And what about the names of Democrat Congressmen whose earmarks and their sponsors are typically listed in the back of the reports, the amount of money provided for them is listed elsewhere, making identifying what Democrat is receiving earmarks a murky affair at best forcing inquiring minds to go on a laborious scavenger hunt according to Brian Faler and David Rosen of Bloomberg.com.
Faler and Rosen write that the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee make its earmark-request letters available only by appointment. Researchers must take notes, because the committee doesn't allow the public to make photocopies of the letters.
So they conclude that the new rules haven't stopped lawmakers from funneling earmarks to specific companies, some of them political donors, as well as to public projects such as roads, schools and parks or Democrats Senators and Congressmen haven’t stopped personally profiting from these earmarks the law is so written that you and I, the voters get the impression that Democrats have done something to change directions when actually its business as usual with Democrats now earmarking themselves into Jack Abramhoff and Randy “Duke” Cunningham like corruption.
Some companies stand to gain from Pelosi's earmarks. The California Democrat has won funding for six companies in a 2008 defense funding measure. One is a $4 million request to develop a ``novel viral biowarfare agent'' for Prosetta Corp., based in her San Francisco district. Tom Higgins, the company's chief executive officer, says he talked to the Speaker's staff directly rather than hiring a lobbyist and hasn't given money to her campaign. ``We're just a little company,'' he says.
Another of Pelosi's earmarks was $2.5 million to Bioquiddity, Inc., a San Francisco biotech company with nine employees, to continue developing drug-infusion pumps.
Bioquiddity President Josh Kriesel, who ran unsuccessfully as a Republican for the state legislature in 2002, has donated $6,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee since last September. The company received a total of $3.9 million in earmarks in the last two years. Kriesel declined to comment directly on the earmarks.
Pelosi has said some earmarks are ``worthy.'' And she said there is a distinction between those for public projects, which she sometimes touts with press releases and special interest earmarks.
Finally, there very well may be a distinction between earmarks Ms. Pelosi but there is no distinction between someone who lied to the American people, as you and your Party did to gain control of both the House and the Senate, and the Republicans that Democrats replaced in November of 2006.
This is hundreds of millions of taxpayer’s dollars Ms. Pelosi that you are throwing at your personal pet projects. And then your Party will have the temerity to stand before the American people and demand higher taxes especially if someone in your party is elected President?
Nope this is not a direction that I want to travel. And I hope the American people feel the same way too!
