Just in Time For When it Doesn't Matter

Yesterday 178 Freedom Fighting Republican House members swore off earmarks for next fiscal year. Seeing how last year 60% of the top earmark spenders were Republican this should cut the budget deficit in half right? Not so much. Earmarks are a very minute portion of the budget, about 1% if I remember correctly. It will do very little to help a trillion dollar deficit and probably do even less to help political posturing in Washington. This move is also rather meaningless, other than scoring some political points with their base since Republican voters claim earmarks are evil.

That being the case, why didn't they swear them off when they were in power? As a powerless minority they wouldn't get a quarter of what they wanted in the first place. So when they have almost no say in earmarks and are completely powerless Republicans have decided they are fiscally concerned once again. That's a rather disingenuous position to take considering while they were in the majority and had complete control over spending it would have been the opportune time to prove they are bound by their so-called principles. Instead of swearing off earmarks when it would have made a difference, they took earmark spending to an all-time high to nearly $100 billion in their last three years in the majority.

Now that they are out of power we are forced to call them fiscal conservatives because of their great concern for governmental monies. Wait, we had to call them fiscal conservatives even when they were in power too. Perpetually it is ordered Republicans are true budget hawks. Everyone else has to sit in awe.