Tea Party Caucus Took Over 1 billion in earmarks:

[EV_Ares]

Anti-Spending Tea Party Caucus Members Took Over $1 Billion In Earmarks

Congressional earmarks have been one of the primary targets of the tea party, representing the nexus of the movement’s arch foes — government spending and Washington influence peddling. If Republicans “go back to their old earmarking ways it could be a VERY short majority,” the president of the hard-right Citizens Against Government Waste warned. Looking to capitalize on the tea party, Republican leaders endorsed bans on earmarking as a way to show they were different from their spendthrift predecessors in previous Congresses. And last month, House Republicans unanimously extended an internal moratorium on earmarks.

But it appears that tea party’s self-proclaimed representatives in Washington haven’t been putting their money where their mouths are. Hotline On Call reports today that members of House Tea Party Caucus, founded by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) to “represent the views of our constituents,” requested over $1 billion in earmarks during the last fiscal year:

According to a Hotline review of records compiled by Citizens Against Government Waste, the 52 members of the caucus, which pledges to cut spending and reduce the size of government, requested a total of 764 earmarks valued at $1,049,783,150 during Fiscal Year 2010, the last year for which records are available.

rest of this article @ Think Progress here: http://thinkprogress.org/2010/12/02/tea-party-caucus-earmarks/