Why the Republicans aren’t really the lesser of evils any more
WaPo:
Way back before Republicans took over the House in 1995, GOP lawmakers pilloried Democrats for stuffing legislation with local projects that get little or no oversight but boost the popularity of the lawmakers who take credit for them.
In 1992, Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the future House speaker, told colleagues: “Democrats . . . see no contradiction between adding a billion and a half dollars in pork-barrel [spending] for the politicians in their big-city machines and voting for a balanced budget amendment.”
But a rising tide of GOP spending on home-district projects is making those Democrats of yesteryear look like mere pikers of pork, according to a 15-page study just released by the minority staff of the House Appropriations Committee.
The study finds that the number of home-state projects earmarked in various bills has skyrocketed under the GOP, despite the party’s rhetorical commitment to reining in a profligate federal government.
Moreover, it contends, Republicans “have opened up broad new areas of government to the practice of earmarking that were previously not subject to earmarks.”
