shrugged off apparent quid-pro-quo deals that cost taxpayers and the economy hundreds of billions of

[midnight]

of dollars. But instead of these loopholes being closed.... The poor and working class have to give up Social Security, and medicare/medicaid...



"Sadly, this is typical of free-spending, favor-giving deficit chicken hawks.


During the 2008 Presidential election, Americans constantly heard about the horrendous threat of earmarks. GOP Nominee John McCain ranted about them almost as much as Rudolph Giuliani obsessed about 9/11. The Washington Post Fact Checker blew the whistle on McCain’s pseudo-crusade for sound fiscal policies:

The Arizona senator is promising to balance the budget by the end of his first term, while simultaneously extending the George W. Bush tax cuts, introducing billions of dollars of new tax cuts of his own, and remaining in Iraq as long as is necessary to stabilize that country. Asked how this miracle will be accomplished, McCain told George Stephanopoulos of ABC News This Week on April 20 that he could come up with $100 billion “tomorrow” by vetoing pork-barrel spending bills. …

The Office for Management and the Budget came up with a figure for $16.9 billion in the 2008 appropriation bills. Taxpayers for Commonsense, an independent
watchdog group that focuses on wasteful spending, identified $18.3 billion worth of earmarks in the 2008 bills, a 23 per cent cut from a record $23.6 billion set in 2005."http://my.firedoglake.com/mikehersh/2011/07/12/fools-for-loopholes/#comments