This installment of the Shelby Pork Report isn’t meant to highlight a specific act of federal largesse at his behest.  Instead its purpose is to shine the light on his pork barreling ways.

The next time Senate Democrats preach spending restraint, readers may want to recall this week’s vote on the line-item veto. The new majority had a perfect opportunity to add a new check on spending earmarks but quickly passed it by.

New Hampshire Republican Judd Gregg needed 60 votes to end debate on his amendment to give the President Bush “rescission” authority. That tool would have allowed Mr. Bush and his successors to single out and send back to Congress earmarks and other wasteful projects in spending bills. Congress would have then been required to vote quickly, up or down, on the spending cuts. Mr. Gregg’s bill was nearly identical to 1995 legislation that was supported by 20 Democrats who are still in the Senate.

Yet Mr. Gregg won only 49 votes, and among Democrats only Indiana’s Evan Bayh and Connecticut’s Joseph Lieberman voted in favor of the spending restraint they’ve preached. Among Republicans, only Alabama’s Richard Shelby voted for his beloved pork-barrel power. At Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, the Members applauded for the cameras when Mr. Bush spoke of controlling earmarks. A day later the Senators showed what they really care about.

Note: The link is to a subscription only Wall Street Journal article.  You can access the article through a local library subscription service, as I did.

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This entry was posted by Brian on Saturday, January 27th, 2007 at 11:03 pm and is filed under Pork, Sen. Shelby. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Please note the copyright policy.