Hypocrites are them

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Stimulating Hypocrisy: Scores of Recovery Act Opponents Sought Money Out of Public View By John Solomon and Aaron Mehta | October 17, 2010

FROM:  The Center for Public Integrity is dedicated to producing original, responsible investigative journalism on issues of public concern in the USA and around the world. 

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Scores of Republicans and conservative Democrats who voted against the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act subsequently wrote letters requesting funds for projects in a massive, behind-the-scenes letter-writing and phone call campaign, documents obtained by the Center show.

Those asking for money include Tea Party favorites like freshman Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., former presidential candidates Ron Paul and John McCain and Republican congressional leaders like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana.

Many Democratic leaders who had boasted they prevented lawmakers from inserting special spending requests in the stimulus law when it passed also engaged in the behind-the-scenes letter writing to secure funding afterwards, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

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The letters particularly dismay conservative advocacy groups like the Tea Party and Americans for Tax Reform that have been backing Republicans in the fall election but now see a touch of hypocrisy among candidates they thought were conservative champions of federal spending cuts.

“The GOP should not be taking this money and spending it regardless of where it came from,” said Rob Gaudet, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. “They should be fighting against it with every fiber of their elected beings.”

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Over the last year, isolated reports of lawmakers and governors seeking funds from a single agency handing out stimulus money have surfaced in the news media. The Center set out to determine how widespread the practice was and who engaged in it.

Using both federal agency sources and the Freedom of Information Act, the Center collected a stack of letters a foot high detailing nearly 2,000 requests from lawmakers in both parties to secure funding from a law designed to stimulate the sagging economy. The Center obtained a total of more than 1,500 of these letters from just three departments: Transportation, Energy, and Commerce.

The correspondence provides a stark example of the gulf between political promises and action.

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While the legislation passed through Congress without any traditional earmarks, lawmakers have worked behind the scenes, cajoling agencies to secure stimulus money for their favored projects for constituents and donors.

The practice — known among lobbyists as “lettermarking”  — has been controversial for years. For instance, infamous superlobbyist Jack Abramoff, since convicted on charges related to fraud and bribery, often arranged for lawmakers to send letters to agencies pressing for appropriation funds, then followed up with donations to the lawmakers who acquiesced.

The White House said it anticipated lawmakers would resort to such a strategy, so Obama issued a directive in March 2009 to agencies telling them they must weigh all grant requests on the merits regardless of political pressure.

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ONE OF THE MOST FAMOUS CRITICS OF EARMARKS AND PORK-BARREL SPENDING — FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE AND CURRENT ARIZONA REPUBLICAN SEN. JOHN MCCAIN — JOINED THE LETTER-WRITING CROWD AFTER THE STIMULUS LAW HE VOTED AGAINST PASSED.  [Capitalization supplied.]

McCain, who made running against pork a key plank of his 2008 presidential campaign, sent a letter offering his “conditional support” for Department of Transportation funds for Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. “My longstanding policy is to treat fairly all Arizona entities applying for federal programs, and I feel it is important not to endorse one applicant over another,” wrote McCain, who also noted that he was writing at the request of the City of Phoenix.

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Sessions, the conservative Texan, continued his assault on the stimulus law while trying to justify his request supporting a stimulus grant for Carrolton, Texas. The city did not win the grant.

“The Democrats’ stimulus bill is an abject failure that has cost taxpayers $1 trillion while over 3 million additional Americans lost their jobs. I voted against this borrow-and-spend policy last year, and I would again today if given the chance,” he told the Center in a written statement.

“What I have not done is allow my strong, principled objection to the bill to prevent me from asking federal agencies for their full consideration of critical infrastructure and competitive grant projects for North Texas when asked to do so by my constituents.”

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Democrats who have endured months of GOP attacks for supporting the stimulus law said their Republican colleagues are trying to have it both ways.

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Like their Republican counterparts, Democratic critics of the stimulus also sent letters seeking funding afterwards.

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The behind-the-scenes pressure for stimulus dollars is particularly sensitive for Republicans, who have wooed the Tea Party movement with an incessant attack on stimulus spending as wasteful and ineffective. In fact, the House GOP’s “Pledge to America” campaign manifesto specifically promises to rescind all unspent stimulus dollars if Republicans regain control of Congress in the November elections.

But some of the GOP’s architects of the anti-stimulus campaign themselves tried to secure money from the program, including McConnell, the Senate leader, and Pence, a spending hawk often mentioned as a 2012 presidential contender, who also helped craft and sell the GOP’s “Pledge to America.”  

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All told, five members of the GOP’s leadership — including McConnell, Pence, Sessions, Alexander, and Washington Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers — sent letters requesting that funds be funneled to more than a dozen projects. All voted against the bill. 

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Gee, we haven't seen much publicity on this, have we?