After Promising To End Earmarks, Tea Party Freshmen Hog Defense Pork
This betrayal of Tea Party principles isn’t new for the freshmen members, who seemed to have discovered the benefits of cozying up to lobbyists the second they set foot in Washington. According to The Washington Post, GOP freshman Kristi Noem (SD) is just one of at least 13 new Republican lawmakers who hired lobbyists to run their offices. During her campaign, Noem railed against special interest groups for “throwing money at the feet of a member of Congress,†and made a big issue of her opponent’s marriage to a lobbyist. In their first few weeks in office, dozens of freshman lawmakers “had fundraisers to collect millions of dollars from lobbyists and other deep-pocketed interests.â€
Dana Milbank noted that it was probably inevitable the Tea Party base would be betrayed, “but the speed with which congressional Republicans have reverted to business-as-usual has been impressive.†Hartzler’s novel justification — that the earmark moratorium doesn’t apply to defense spending — is revealing. Apparently pork isn’t pork if it’s for big hairy weapons systems. The unspoken reasoning is that the freshmen are confident they won’t get tagged for violating their pledge if they can spin it as being “tough on defense.â€
They shouldn’t bet on it. A recent Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 51 percent of Americans support cutting defense spending to reduce the deficit. Nevertheless, the Tea Party freshmen’s rapid turnaround illustrates an unfortunate political truth: it’s only pork when your opponent does it