An article posted at the American Enterprise Institute calls Texas Congressman and GOP Presidential candidate Ron Paul a "big government libertarian," citing his numerous earmarks requests.
According to the article, written by Marc A. Thiessen of the Washington Post, Paul has requested millions in earmarks while voting against the bills, thereby making him look pure.
He wrote:
His strategy is to stuff legislation with earmarks that benefit his constituents and thus his reelection, and then vote against the overall bill — knowing full well it will pass over his objections — so he can claim to have opposed all the spending in the first place.
In 2009, he defended this in a Fox News interview, telling Neil Cavuto that “earmarks is the responsibility of the Congress. We should earmark even more.”
Besides, he adds, he votes against them anyway.
It seems that Paul - who rails against the way Washington operates - has figured out how to game the system pretty well.
He adds:
Consider Paul’s record. The libertarian Reason magazine points out that in 2009 Paul voted against a $410 billion omnibus spending bill that passed over his objections. But the magazine notes (quoting the Houston Chronicle) that “Paul played a role in obtaining 22 earmarks worth $96.1 million, which led the Houston congressional delegation, according to a Houston Chronicle analysis of more than 8,500 congressionally mandated projects inserted into the bill.”
By doing this, Paul got to have his cake and eat it, too. Not only can he claim to have voted against the measure, he got to suck millions of taxpayer dollars into his own district. Pretty slick, isn't it?
The tactic is so slick that Paul was named a "Hero" by the watchdog group "Citizens Against Government Waste" in 2010.
But that's not all.
Thiessen, citing the Texas Independent, writes that Paul "was one of only four House Republicans to break with his party’s earmark moratorium in 2011."
“Paul sent 41 earmark requests totaling $157,093,544 for the 2011 Fiscal Year” and “For Fiscal Year 2010, Paul requested 54 total earmarks, adding up to $398,460,640 in pork that the former presidential candidate sought to bring home to his district,” the Independent reported, adding that the 2010 requests were made prior to the GOP's voluntary ban.
He notes that Paul engaged in a bit of hypocrisy over earmarks for victims of Hurricane Katrina:
After Hurricane Katrina, Paul opposed government assistance for victims, telling The Post: “Is bailing out people that chose to live on the coastline a proper function of the federal government? Why do people in Arizona have to be robbed in order to support the people on the coast?” He even even wrote in a 2005 column that “In several disasters that have befallen my Gulf Coast district, my constituents have told me many times that they prefer to rebuild and recover without the help of federal agencies like FEMA, which so often impose their own bureaucratic solutions on the owners of private property.”
But in 2010, Paul requested "tens of millions of dollars in earmarks to assist with hurricane recovery for his district."
"Which raises a question for Rep. Paul: Why do people in Arizona have to be robbed in order to support the people of his congressional district?" Thiessen asks.
Good question.
He noted that many on Capitol Hill do the same thing - inserting earmark requests while voting against the bill.
But, he notes, Paul claims to be different.
Thiessen adds:
He has portrayed himself as the most anti-Washington candidate in the GOP presidential race — and perhaps he is. But for a self-professed Washington outsider, he sure seems to have mastered the inside Washington game pretty well.
Which makes Ron Paul a big-government libertarian.
More on Ron Paul at Examiner.com can be found here.
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