Sometimes watching the goings-on in Congress truly makes you think of that colloquial expression, "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic."
That is certainly the case when we look at the whole issue surrounding the egregious earmark of Charles Rangel, the Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee (pictured left). The earmark in question is to shell out $2 million dollars to go towards the creation of a center for public policy at the City College of New York.
Now, there may be some debate in Congress about whether $2 million to go towards a building at a college is "egregious" or not. Certainly in the current paradigm that is Congress, where members routinely are sending home pork to their districts, this earmark unfortunately doesn’t really stick out.
EXCEPT… Now, get this. It falls under the category of "you simply couldn’t make this up if you tried…"
The earmark calls for funding the CHARLES B RANGEL Center for Public Service. That’s right, this left wing Democrat who has probably never voted against a tax increase in his life wants to appropriate millions in federal tax dollars to go towards a building named after… HIMSELF!
But wait, there’s more.
According to the marketing materials provided by Rangel himself to his colleagues, this center includes a library to house the Congressman’s future papers, a "well furnished office" for him, and an endowment. There is even mention of a librarian to work on the organizing of his papers. Apparently this last part is worded thusly in the paperwork: "The Rangel archivist librarian will organize, index and preserve for posterity all documents, photographs and memorabilia relating to Congressman Rangel’s career."’
Pretty outrageous, eh? Pretty EGREGIOUS.
Well, up to the plate steps our own Flashreport Washington, D.C., correspondent Congressman John Campbell (pictured right). We’re all very proud of Campbell who in his short time on Capitol Hill has garnered a reputation for being one of the most dogmatic fiscal watchdogs in Congress.
Last Thursday night, when this matter was up on the floor of the House, Congressman Campbell offered a very simple amendment — to strike this egregious earmark. If you have a few minutes, you can actually watch the ensuing floor debate between Campbell and Rangel right here or if you don’t have the time to watch it, it is a quick read here.
My favorite part of the dialogue between Campbell and Rangel comes towards the end, where the self-important Rangel announces that it is totally appropriate that HE pursue this earmarked named for himself, but that Congressman Campbell is too new to Congress to be able to do such a thing himself. Nice.
One can also observe that Rangel ignores Campbell’s observation that such an earmark naming a building after a living, currently serving Member of Congress is certainly in violation of the spirit of a House rule that prohibits this sort of thing.
Of course, we wouldn’t have to worry about Campbell doing such a thing, because like you and me, he sees this as an outrageous abuse of the earmarking system.
The good news, I suppose, is that Rangel is a liberal Democrat, and Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. So with Campbell putting up his amendment, this should afford to allow us to CONTRAST the Democrats and the Republicans. Um, no.
John Campbell’s motion to kill that earmark failed all right, but it was hardly a partisan vote. The vote on the amendment was a mere 109 in favor (notably, this included ALL of the Republican freshmen, and also included one Democrat). 328 Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, either voted no or didn’t vote at all. Pretty sad.
I wonder WHY more Members of Congress, especially Republicans, did not vote for Campbell’s amendment? A few immediate thoughts come to mind as potential reasons, none of them very appealing, especially since if these were the reasons, it would demonstrate that losing the majority did not materially impact the way that GOP Members of Congress view the whole pork system. Potential reasons?
- "The votes were going to be there anyway, and I didn’t want to unnecessarily agitate an influential Committee Chairman"
- "If we all start going after the pork that each of us is trying to bring home, soon there won’t be any, and where is the justice in that?"
- "We asked for transparency in earmarks, there was no doubt with his name on the building exactly whose earmark this was."
- "Wow, my own building, office, library, and endowment? Rangel thinks big. If we get the majority back, I want a deal like that."
I guess the answer I would appreciate the most from any of our California GOPers (or, frankly any Members of Congress that voted for this turkey) would be: "Oh my goodness. I guess I didn’t realize how egregious this earmark truly was. Had I known, I would have voted no."
Fox News carried a story on this (choice quote from Brit Hume: "That’s right — he wants us to pay for a building named in his honor.").
Also, a column ran in the New York post entitled, "Rangel (heart) Rangel: Dem Builds Monument to Self with Public Cash"
Kim Strassel takes this outrage to task in the Wall Street Journal’s Political Diary.
Congressman Campbell correctly laments that last year we had the "Bridge to Nowhere" and this year we now have the "Monument to Me."
Given the quite obvious poor PR stink of this earmark, don’t you have to wonder aloud how a majority of Republicans, starting at the top with GOP Leaders John Boehner and Roy Blunt, could vote for it? What are we all missing? In a few years, this press release from Rangel will be found over at the Rangel Center with his other papers. If you need help finding it, ask the Rangel Librarian.
HOW DID YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS VOTE? (full roll call)
ALL of California’s Democrats voted against the Campbell amendment.
As for the Republicans, ONLY SIX (including Campbell) were among the 109 "aye" votes to end this egregious earmark:
John Campbell
Darrell Issa
Dan Lungren
Kevin McCarthy
Devin Nunez
George Radanovich
And the GOPers who voted for the Rangel earmark (with the naming of the building for Rangel, the librarian, the office, and the librarian):
Brian Bilbray
Mary Bono
Ken Calvert
John Doolittle
David Dreier
Wally Herger
Duncan Hunter
Jerry Lewis (of course)
Buck McKeon
Gary Miller
Dana Rohrabacher
Ed Royce
I will tell you that many of the "no’s" surprised me. I would like to extend an open invitation for any or all GOPers who voted for the Rangel Center to send us an explanation for their vote against John Campbell’s amendment, and we will print it!
In closing, I would like to thank Congressman Campbell for his leadership on this important issue, and so many others. Also, a h/t to the office of Congressman Kevin McCarthy for the graphic of the actual text of the earmark.
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