“As we go forward and make investments, we have to make sure we're making wise investments and the decision on what gets funded and what amount gets decided on merits and not just political muscle, ... That's what's been happening in the Corps' budget. You can have one of the most important projects in the country, but if it happens in a freshman's district, it's probably not going to get funded.”
“We have a clear example here that earmarks caused harm. Because we siphoned off funds to go to parochial projects, we have put people in harm's way and exposed them to greater risk. Congress needs to put its house in order and target their funding to where there's the greatest need,”
“The Corps of Engineers and Congress are partners in crime. We have this process where the pork barrel dictates that we spread the money over the 535 mouths to feed that are Congress rather than putting our resources where it makes the most sense.”
“The lack of a spending plan makes this speech appear to be more about political damage control than disaster relief, ... The bottom line is, we can't afford to simply hand over the keys to the Treasury.”
“The passing got better. Our focus is going to continue to be our passing. We need to be more accurate. We have a lot of growing and maturing to do. The good thing is we're young and going to just get better.”
“This bill boggles the mind. Brazen doesn't begin to describe it. The Louisiana delegation is using Katrina as an excuse to resurrect a laundry list of pork projects.”
“but they are a good start. Operation Offset, for example, steers away from cutting Cold War weapon systems at the Department of Defense. Military spending is already half of all discretionary spending, so it is not time to take any of the nation's budgetary choices off the table. Literally, we need to count all the federal dollars hiding in every agency couch cushion or we will never come up with the money to offset the Katrina costs.”
