Ron Paul isn't conservative because he votes for earmarks?

[ClayTrainor]

Someone is trying to tell me that Ron Paul is not a conservative because he voted for over 400 ear marks.


What exactly are ear marks, and why does ron vote for them?

 

[amonasro]

I understand that it's money allocated to a Congressman's congressional district. It's a way to get funding for projects but I think greedy politicians have given them a bad name. People who use this argument against Ron have little knowledge of what they are and how they work in my experience.

 

[Danke]

Wow, not this again.

Do a search on the forum, it has been discussed many times


P.S. Did you know RP is also a racist?

 

[Omphfullas Zamboni]

Do a search on the forum, it has been discussed many times

http://www.google.com/search?q=site...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

 

[Paulitical Correctness]

http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?t=65820

 

[ClayTrainor]

Duly noted, i shoudl've done a search first, my bad

 

[Omphfullas Zamboni]

Duly noted, i shoudl've done a search first, my bad

As far as I have seen, using Google to search the forums is at least a little more effective than using the default bulletin board search capabilities.

Type in Google:

site:http://www.ronpaulforums.com/ "what I want to search"

Regards,
Omphfullas Zamboni

 

[ClayTrainor]

As far as I have seen, using Google to search the forums is at least a little more effective than using the default bulletin board search capabilities.

Type in Google:

site:http://www.ronpaulforums.com/ "what I want to search"

Regards,
Omphfullas Zamboni

Cheers, and thanks for the tip man.

 

[Lucille]

Someone is trying to tell me that Ron Paul is not a conservative because he voted for over 400 ear marks.

What exactly are ear marks, and why does ron vote for them?

It's hard to believe anyone even cares about frickin' earmarks while the nation is being plundered to the tune of trillions by the Craven Criminals on Capitol Hill to benefit their Politically-Favored Wall Street Whores.

 

[Chester Copperpot]

RPFs member Max did a great thread on Earmarks with an analogy with pizza... it was very good.

 

[Kludge]

Earmarks are VERY conservative.

 

[misterx]

I think it was Chris Matthews who originally made this attack during the campaign. It is very misleading. Basically congress appropriates an amount of money, say 100 million to pet projects. This money will be spent in Paul's district or someone else's. Paul has an obligation to earmark a share of that money for the people of his district. If he doesn't do that, the money will just be earmarked for another district, and he would be failing in his duty to represent the people of his district. Now when it comes time to vote if any of this money will be spent, he always votes no. Only when it will be spent anyways does he make sure his own people aren't left out. or

 

[Zolah]

It's hard to believe anyone even cares about frickin' earmarks while the nation is being plundered to the tune of trillions by the Craven Criminals on Capitol Hill to benefit their Politically-Favored Wall Street Whores.

I was thinking a similar thought just yesterday - people get OUTRAGED when they hear a politician is using e.g $30,000 of taxpayer funds to furnish their home or buy a new car...OUTRAGED...

But the government casually announces it will steal $30 billion and give it to people who failed miserably at what they were supposed to do and everyone shrugs and acts in the manner of general malaise as if it doesn't really matter..

And of course 30 bills is a mere drop in the ocean, they're giving them over a trill and hardly anyone seems to care..

 

[Josh_LA]

Earmarks are VERY conservative.

the same way racism is very libertarian?

 

[Kludge]

the same way racism is very libertarian?

Depends on the definition of racism. Modern "racism" is not supporting affirmative action (reverse discrimination), so I suppose racism is indeed very libertarian.

 

[lucynuts]

Earmarks is basically congress' main purpose to allocate federal funds to the many hundreds of districts across the US and in some cases to many, many, many other parts of the world. While some may find it outrageous that Ron Paul has voted for earmarks it is most important to note that he also always votes no to fund any of the earmarks. This might seem confusing that he votes for funding to go to his district while voting no on the actual funding, usually called a budget bill of whatever year.

Hopefully this makes some sense of what earmarks are and that while it is a vote to direct funds to districts it does not approve the actual funding in most cases.

For example federal funds allocated to help Katrina victims may be considered earmarks.

 

[Chieftain1776]

I think the best response to this is "If the charge is Ron Paul promotes 'Do what I say not as I do' then what if every congressman followed Ron Paul's example to the letter? They would vote for the earmark and then vote down the whole bill. The final outcome would be a vote of 0-425 and spending bill of....$0!"

 

[MikeStanart]

I was always under the impression that Paul would vote against the spending bills, but slip a small earmark in (knowing the bill would pass) to help out his district.

As long as it's not excessive I don't see a major problem with that.

The way I look at it; he's just returning money back to his district that should never have gone to Washington to begin with.

 

[Fox McCloud]

he hasn't voted on any, he merely offers amendments to bills he knows will pass, then votes against the bill.

the way he views it is that the district is owed money that it had stolen, erm, taxed from it....however, he doesn't support the system, as a whole...so he uses a sneaky little method to keep his conscience clear, but still get his district money.

after all, as Ron himself said, if no one earmarked anything, then government agencies could dip into the pot and use it.

 

[Knightskye]

Three questions:

1. How much in earmarks has Ron Paul received (since he always votes No on the final bill)?

2. How much in spending has Ron Paul voted against?

3. Is he a conservative?