Never Trust a Cardinal
As the old saying goes, "There are Republicans, there are Democrats, and then there are Appropriators". According to this article, House appropriators (so-called "cardinals") are going to show "restraint" this year by only allowing 10 pork projects per member per appropriations bill. Folks, putting appropriators in charge of earmark reform is like putting the foxes in charge of henhouse security. Their altruism is nothing but smoke and mirrors. With there being 10 approps bills, and 435 House members, that's 43,500 pork projects a year! As one reliable source on the Hill pointed out to me, that's high and above what lawmakers requested during last year's pork fest, which was only 34,687 earmarks. So who are these disingenuous "cardinals" who love to spend our money? Here they are: bq. Henry Bonilla (TX-23) Joseph Knollenberg (MI-09) Bill Young (FL-10) David Hobson (OH-07) Jim Kolbe (AZ-08) Charles Taylor (NC-11) Harold Rogers (KY-05) Ralph Regula (OH-16) James Walsh (NY-25) Frank Wolf (VA-10) Please note that you will NEVER find their names on the sponsorship list for the RSC budget. Nor will you find them even having decent NTU scores on fiscal responsibility. In fact, in 2005, their average NTU score was 49%, which is a "C-" grade. The average House Republican score was 62% with a median of 59%. These cardinals are below average Republicans. They are about as squishy as they come.
