Hatch Opposes His Own Earmarks in Omnibus Bill; Obama, Democrats, Bennett, Hatch All Fail Utah (Update)

Senate Democrats ruined last Christmas by passing Obamacare. This Christmas, they want to push the country into further oblivion by passing a last-minute, $1.1T, 1924-page (link to actual text), massive pork-barrel-laden Ominbus bill with 6600 earmarks, to make up for dereliction of duty in not passing a budget.¹ The bill if passed and signed by Obama (as widely expected if passed), would violate Obama's election promises to keep government transparent with C-SPAN coverage, fight wasteful spending, and not vote for earmarks.

Senate Democrats overwhelmingly support the spending. A few RINOs have voiced support including Bob Bennett who is on his last month as Utah's Senator and is ending his reign by showing his true, liberal Democratic colors: (The Hill.com, emphasis mine)

“That’s my intention,” said retiring Sen. Bob Bennett (R-Utah) when asked
if he would support the package.

Bennett said earmarks in the bill might give some of his GOP colleagues reason to hesitate but wouldn’t affect his vote.

“It will be tough for some, but not for me,” he said.

After still not listening to Utah's desire for us to actually follow the Constitution and decimate the deficit, all I can say to Bennett that since I can do no more to get you any sooner out of office, may God hold you accountable for the country and the lives you are destroying.

Hatch meanwhile is doing the doublespeak. While is denouncing the Omnibus on Fox News² his own earmark requests have been stuffed into the bill. That's the problem, and he hasn't owned up to it either. As I reported in my last blog entry: Hatch Proposes UTOPIA Bailout Earmark for 2 Towns, Hatch proposed a $1M bailout earmark for helping with the UTOPIA buildout for Perry City and Tremonton in a $132B appropriations bill which had yet to be voted on: S. 3606.

The proposed $1.1T Omnibus takes S. 3606 and adopts it in full or modified form (so sorry, like anybody else in Congress I haven't had time to read it all) and combines it with the other pending appropriation bills Congress has failed to address. If you compare p. 55 of S. 3606 which authorizes the money to p. 63 of the Omnibus, they read exactly the same: both grant the continuation of the $18M in grant money (the grant money was separately earmarked on p. 76 of Senate report 111-221).

I've only had time to identify these two earmarks by Hatch in this bill. The real question--and I honestly don't know (probably no one does as of this moment)--is just how many earmarks of the hundreds Hatch has proposed for FY 2011 are in this awful Omnibus? And when will Hatch be honest to the people of Utah about his role in earmarking and contributions to the deficit?

Obama has failed. Democrats have been derelict--as well as proposing thousands of earmarks themselves--Bennett has converted to the Democratic Party, and Hatch is saying one thing and doing another. Utah: we've got a big problem on our hands. It's time to raise the alarm that Scrooge is about to steal another Christmas.

++++ Update 12/16 8am:

(h/t) Political Cornflakes Hatch has apparently stripped out his [other] earmark requests in the Omnibus due to his moratorium support (TPM). Still remains viable for Perry and Tremonton to get the money Hatch asked for.

More importantly Hatch's website has been scrubbed of his earmark requests. I half suspected this might happen so I downloaded copies before and am happy to repost the documents or email any interested parties. Naughty, naughty Hatch. Trying to cover up your wrongdoings before it gets out of the blogosphere into broadcast media.

At least Hatch is shrewd enough not to ignore lowly blogger Nacilbupera.

¹ Not to mention lame-duck Democrats attempt at passing a START treaty, a federal land grab, and a repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell, and others I am missing...

² While the denunciations are good, they're probably more aimed at kicking off his 2012 re-election bid than to seriously attack spending. Case in point: Hatch's vote today to extend unfunded unemployment benefits and pork spending for a weak 2-year deferment of tax increases.

Hatch Proposes UTOPIA Bailout Earmark for 2 Towns (Updated)

It is no secret that UTOPIA, Utah's 11-city¹ fiber optic services consortium is struggling to compete against private sector internet providers. In its eight-year life despite inclusion of the 2nd and 6th largest cities in Utah, the consortium has only 10,000 subscribers (SL Tribune) and has extensive annual losses. What has remained uncovered in the media is Sen. Orrin Hatch's plan to bail out two of the smallest member cities--Tremonton (pop. 7K) and Perry (pop. 3K)--with a $1M earmark to help cover these cities' UTOPIA buildout costs.

From Hatch's website Hatch proposed for FY 2011 $272K in help for Tremonton while Perry City gets $750K. That's $250 of redistribution of wealth from the hardworking taxpayers of America to every man, woman, child, and babe in Perry for a fiber optic system that only a handful of residents will use.

The earmark is contained as part of a $18M undistributed grant [taxpayer] money [I think of it as unspent money against a credit card limit as we have no money] found on page 55 of the $132B S. 3606 which has not been voted on in the Senate; the Democrats having voted to leave town October [Utah's Matheson to blame here] in hopes of campaigning to save their political lives leaving Congress to run under a "continuing resolution" fiasco. The specifics of the earmark are found on page 76 of Senate report 111-221 (pdf version), under the section "DISTANCE LEARNING, TELEMEDICINE, AND BROADBAND PROGRAM LOANS AND GRANTS" where the "Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies" [Wow. Maybe we could acronym it the A.S.A.R.D.F.D.A.R.A.!!!] lead by Sen Kohl (D-WI) recommended its expenditure alongside a bunch of other pork from other states, many having Senate representation on the subcommittee.

Unfortunately this $1M bailout is only one bite of the porkulous hog Hatch has proposed for FY 2011. The website WashingtonWatch.com lists 13 pages of earmarks numbering in the hundreds Hatch has proposed. The website is interactive and one can sound off by voting for or against individual earmarks and leaving comments.

Did Hatch not get the message as to what voters want? The $18M in its entirety should be cut from the bill. No pork-barrel earmarks. Slash spending and no bailouts. A fiscal conservative is supposed to do what I'm doing and identify pork and to try and stop it. I don't know what Hatch is fiscally, but away from the spotlight he's doing the opposite of what a fiscal conservative would do: adding to the pork when he should be cutting.

¹ UTOPIA lists membership as 16 cities on their website. Wikipedia defines the additional 5 cities as "non-pledging."


+++++ Update 12/13 8pm

To my pleasant surprise, Holly on the Hill and Free UTOPIA! had wonderful write-ups on this story today. Holly pointed to the Hatch's press release statement:

"...I have always said I have an obligation as your Senator to make sure our state, our communities and our people get back the hard-earned tax dollars we contribute to the federal treasury." (emphasis mine)

The problem with Hatch's press release is that it is the antithesis of fiscal conservatism and gives reason to why he is not acting like a fiscal conservative. From this statement I extract three egregious points:

(1) The "hard-earned tax dollars" are supposed to be paying for constitutionally-defined vital federal services such as national defense and the post office and flow one-way to the government to pay for these services. That one could "get back" the money means that constitutionally the government has no place in misappropriating private property in the first place.

(2) If Hatch indeed has authority to give back money to Utah, then he must accept that all other 534 members of Congress do as well. This results in protracted bickering among equals as to who gets what share of the pie and is resolved only by everyone getting everything which does further damage to the deficit.

(3) Hatch's statement thus defines him as a believer in "redistribution of wealth," a tenant of socialism. Hatch believes it is his job, indeed his "obligation" to take money the government has coerced from the people and decide who the winners and losers are in the state of Utah to receive back the distribution.

Contrast Hatch's press release with what a fiscal conservative such as myself would say regarding earmarks:

I have always said I have an obligation as your Senator to make sure our state, our communities and our people do not pay a single excessive dime of the hard-earned tax dollars we contribute beyond what is vitally necessary and Constitutionally permitted to the federal treasury.

Treason by Earmark and Debt

We're not sure exactly when it happened, but somewhere along the past several months reducing our massive Federal debt has supplanted terrorism as being our top national priority in Nacilbupera's mind. Perhaps we feel that Al-Qaeda terrorists are using our economy to wreak destruction upon our country. Perhaps we want to vomit when Obama proposed higher taxes while claiming we have had our taxes cut. Perhaps we feel Obama's proposed budget deficit of $1.5T--more than tripling the worst "W" year--is a act of treason in itself.

Life under Hyperinflation
Nacilbupera was a financial clerk in Argentina during 1989 when that country experienced hyperinflation: it totalled 5000% that year and was devastating. Imagine prices on chalkboards at the grocery store that could change (increase) while you were shopping. Imagine losing in a single day over 60% of your currency's value vs. the world. Imagine 1-day and 1-week Certificates of Deposits (CD's). Imagine unannounced, prolonged bank closures and then when they open having a maximum withdrawal of $100 per account. Imagine having to fly out of the country to obtain currency because there simply isn't enough printed. Imagine no one paying a bill until the hour it was due because were you pay a week before, you would be paying significantly more. Imagine holding a new 10,000 denomination bill in your hand and realizing you really had US$20. In hyperinflation, these are no mirages but rather realities. Hyperinflation has a huge negative impact on productivity and output: it would be similar to having to file your taxes every day.

The bottom line is that with an unmanageable Federal debt and huge spike in the money supply as we monetize our national debt, as a country we are risking future hyperinflation. Surely, the road to hyperinflation is a treasonous one! Although earmarks account for a small portion of the debt, they frequently contain frivolous, if not scandalous wastes of money and point to corruption in the elected officials that proposed them.

Utahns on Earmarks
KNRS radio talk show host Bob Lonsberry really spelled out the problem for us in Utah on his radio show today; so much so that we made the following clip:



Meanwhile, Matt Canham over at the Salt Lake Tribune had an article today on this same subject of earmarks. While all four of Bennett's contenders are anti-earmark, Canham confirmed what Nacilbupera has seen from Cherilyn Eagar's position: not only a die-hard stance against them, but an unabashed critic of those who involuntarily seek treasonous acts by proposing such out-of-control earmark spending.

Eagar is the only Senate candidate who has attacked Bennett directly on the issue, calling him "addicted to earmarks." She has said big spending bills loaded with thousands of pet projects "smacks of cronyism and corruption."

Canham further cited Eagar as saying that earmarks "must show a legitimate federal tie-in"--a position Nacilbupera feels is dead-on correct.

The time has come for us to make a stand. Be like Lonsberry and call out treason when you see it. It doesn't matter if someone is a grandson of a Mormon prophet; evil is evil. The prophets have told us to "get out of debt" and they didn't mean for everyone to get out of debt except for Bailout Bob's pet projects and the rest of the massive Federal socialistic bureaucracy.