It’s often tempting to dive into the GOP’s noisy crusade against earmarks, if only to point out the unabashed hypocrisy of lawmakers like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell — who watched many in his party decry the earmarks in this year’s $410 billion spending bill while securing a nice bit of cash for his own home-state projects.
And on the topic of shooting fish in a barrel, Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) was pretty exercised about earmarks today on Fox News:
Now is not the time to be earmarking a lot of this money. People don’t mind paying taxes and they understand the government needs to be run, but they hate to see their money wasted. So that’s a second reason for opposing [the bill.
…
Well, I suspect there will be some that vote for it. Some like these earmarks, for one thing.
And Kyl would be one of those who likes earmarks. He secured $5 million in funding for solo earmarks in the bill, along with $25.8 million for joint earmarks with other lawmakers, according to a database assembled by the non-partisan Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Or as Kyl told the Washington Examiner this week, “Anything I have in the bill, I have a reason for.”
