Demonizing Ron Paul for doing his job
WASHINGTON — Rep. Ron Paul vehemently denounced the $410 billion catch-all spending bill approved last week by the House of Representatives.
But although the libertarian-leaning Republican from Lake Jackson cast a vote against the massive spending measure, his fingerprints were on some of the earmarks that helped inflate its cost.
…
His earmarks included repair projects to the Galveston Seawall damaged by Hurricane Ike and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
This makes perfect sense to me. It’s not hypocritical at all, as this article seems to paint it. He’s always done this, and there are good reasons behind it.
- The federal government taxes his constituents. They want their money back.
- He adds earmarks to bills promising funding to the states, then votes against them.
- Result: His district gets money, and he votes on principle.
It’s like if there’s this big pot of soup that everyone’s about to eat, and Ron Paul tells everyone it has too much bacon, but no one listens. Then, he lets everyone watch him dump a whole bunch of bacon into the soup, proving it has too much bacon. He then watches everyone continue to eat the soup, while he refuses to eat it on account that it will give him heart disease. He added bacon to the soup, so he must be partially at fault if everyone dies of cardiac arrest, right? No.
To clarify:
- The soup is the bill
- The bacon is a load of earmarks
- Eating the soup is equivalent to voting in favor of the bill
