Necessary Roughness

Americans for Prosperity chronicles five more votes in the House on the Energy and Water Appropriations Bill.

Rep. Tiberi (R-OH), who had been voting for all the measures to strip out the pork, finally found some pork he liked. A No vote on this amendment denotes the desire to spend the money:

Strike $1,000,000 for the Juniata Ultra Low Emission Locomotive Demonstration in Pennsylvania - REJECTED 46-372. Click here to see the roll call.

Seven out of eight Roll Call votes to slash pork isn’t bad. Why would Congressman Tiberi vote No on the last measure? AFP postulates:

In any case, for those keeping score at home, Congressman Flake has now forced five recorded votes this week to strike specific pork-barrel earmarks from two appropriations bills. Unfortunately, support for his amendments has dropped with each successive vote - from 92 votes for his first amendment, to 90, 87, 64, and just 46 votes for his most recent amendment.

This obviously isn’t a good sign for the taxpayers - are some Members of Congress trying to send Congressman Flake and other fiscal hawks a message?

One of the pork projects, $600,000 for the Center for End-of-Life Electronics in West Virginia, was put in the bill by Congressman Alan Mollohan (D-WV), who is under federal investigation for using earmarks to send money to home and friends. Incredibly, even the attempt to remove this spending was defeated, by voice vote. A roll call vote to see who likes corrupt politics would have been nice.