Senate Passes Pork UPDATE: School Choice goes Down
The Senate passed the porky $410 billion omnibus spending bill by a vote of 62-35. There’s upwards of $8 billion of pork packed into the bill. If you’d like a list of some of the projects check here.
Obama will more-than-likely sign the bill, despite his claim that he’ll fight against earmarks. Just some of those comments come in this video, and this one, and this one as well.
Anyway you slice it when Obama inevitably signs this spending bill he’ll be getting his earmark crusade off on the wrong foot.
UPDATE: I wrote this post while I was watching American Idol so I didn’t get to read some of the specifics of the vote, I was just reading on Michelle Malkin that the school choice amendment, that would have saved the D.C. scholarship program, went down 39-58. Notable GOPers that voted against school choice; Specter and Murkowski.
While I was at CPAC I had a chance to hear the woman who ran the effort to save the program speak, and she told some very good stories of children who have benefited immensely from the opportunity to attend a school that doesn’t suck. The D.C. public schools are a mess and this scholarship program was giving children an opportunity at a real education, but now it will be discontinued.
We hear about the democrats looking out for the inner city and for the poor, but this shows their true colors. They only pretend to look out for those people to get their votes, when it comes down to voting for legislation that actually helps those people, they turn it down.
Sad.
–jb
