Today, I was honored by the Club for Growth with the Defender of Economic Freedom Award. 49 Members of the House and 6 Senators received the award as well.

This award is granted to those members who demonstrate a strong commitment to economic freedom and free-market principals.  In order to receive this award, reciepients must have earned at least a 90% rating on the Club for Growth’s most recent scorecard. 

For your convenience I have listed the winners below.

For Tax Year 2006

Today, The Hill reported on several lawmakers happy with current prospects on earmarking….mainly because they stand to increase their share of pork at the trough if more members of congress take no earmark pledges

The average GOP member brought home $10.5 million in earmarks last year.  With roughly 36 members abstaining this year, GOP earmarkers are slated to better that mark by about $2 million each, and it shows…

Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-OH) said in the article, “I would hope a hundred of my colleagues would not request earmarks.”   

Rep. James Walsh (R-NY) went on to confirm that members stand to receive more money for earmarks by saying, “If there are fewer requests, there should be more money to go around.”

Rep. David Hobson (R-OH) added, “It is not going be to helpful to win back the majority,” Hobson said, arguing that earmarks help members get elected to Congress. Instead, anti-earmark groups like the Club for Growth and the RSC are “eating their own.”

“It is easier to b---h than to govern. It seems the Club for Growth, and the RSC want to complain.”

It is plain as day that we still have many Republicans as well as Democrats who continue to engage in unabashed earmarking. 

On a lighter note, Mr. Hobson and Mr. Walsh have both announced retirement plans.  Let’s hope their successors recognize the need for change. 

According to a recent report from the Washington Post, medical suppliers have billed Medicare up to $92 million dollars for wheelchairs and various other pieces of home medical equipment.  Unfortunately for the American taxpayer, those claims were filed using the names and identification numbers of deceased physicians.

Senate investigators estimate that between 384,730 and 572,238 fraudulent claims have been honored by The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) since 2000. 

It's no wonder that since 1990 Medicare has been a familiar sight on the GAO's "high risk" list. 

You may remember my exchange with Rep. Charles B. Rangel last year when I questioned his earmark for $2 million for the Charles B. Rangel Center of Public Policy.

Today, the Washington Post reported on a letter writing campaign Mr. Rangel has engaged in, soliciting contributions from corporations and foundations for his Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Policy at the City College of New York.  Furthermore, these letters were sent on Congressional stationary to leaders throughout the business community, flaunting the fact that he is Chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.  

Rangel has been soliciting donations from a variety of business leaders many of whom have business interests in the decisions of his committee, which has broad jurisdiction over tax policy, trade, Social Security and Medicare.

Chairman Rangel has also managed to secure two Department of Housing and Urban Development grants totaling $690,500 to help renovate the college-owned Harlem building that is slated to house the center.

That’s almost $3 million of your tax dollars, so Chairman Rangel can build a Monument to Himself. 

Ridiculous.

The federal takeover of IndyMac Bank over the weekend could cost the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. between $4 billion and $8 billion. But Senator Chuck Schumer, who helped to precipitate the collapse by publicizing a letter to the bank's regulator last month, has no remorse.

He was, he says, just doing his job in telling regulators that the bank "could face a collapse," a prophecy that quickly proved to be self-fulfilling. "It's what legislators are supposed to do," the New York Democrat told the Journal. Depositors who spent Monday trying to recover some of their money might beg to differ.

Read the whole thing.  Pay close attention to the last paragraph:  

But Mr. Schumer was not content merely to share his profound concern with regulators. He also leaked the June 26 letter to the press – which is more like shouting "fire" in a crowded bank than dialing 911.

Lots of ordinary people lost lots of money because Charles Schumer always needs the spotlight.  Those families may never recover their financial freedom, but Schumer sails along, as culpable as the worst Enron executive for the ruin he has visited on innocent people.

When will the Washington insiders get it?  Today, The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper reported about an earmark from Democratic Congressman Paul Kanjorski (PA), which the Department of Transportation (DOT) is actively opposing.  

The earmark, from the 2005 transportation appropriation bill is for the construction of a $5.6 million parking garage next to…..the Kanjorski Center.  The reason for the obstruction?  It does not comply with federal rules, which state “only if they are connected to other public transportation facilities outside a business area with a population of 50,000 or more, or if it serves high-occupancy vehicles (HOVs) and public mass transportation passengers.”

The DOT has taken issue with more than 20 of Mr. Kanjorski’s earmarks in the past several years, and now the local communities have problems with Kanjorski’s earmarks, because they often benefit groups associated with his family members.

To top it off, the “Kanjorski Center” which was to receive the $5.6 million parking garage currently stands empty.  That’s right, no one occupies the building but Mr. Kanjorski feels it necessary to send your tax dollars to build a parking garage.

A “monument to me”, an unused building, a parking lot, family connections, and a rules violation…No it’s not a Hollywood blockbuster….it’s the United States Congress.

Yesterday, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), released its Monthly Budget Review, and not to my surprise it stated “The federal government incurred a deficit of $268 billion for the first nine months of fiscal year 2008, CBO estimates, $148 billion more than the shortfall recorded during the same period in 2007.”

CBO also estimates that about $79 billion of that change is a direct result of the Economic Stimulus Act that passed the House at the beginning of this year.

We are now seeing the direct effect from reckless spending without reductions elsewhere.  I have said it before and I will say it now, both Republicans and Democrats need to understand that if we continue on our current course we are on a collision course for the highest debt in American history.

“Its failure (Congress) to do anything [about entitlement programs] — despite numerous warnings from economists from across the political spectrum — makes the case that only the SAFE approach has any chance of working.

There is little encouragement on this issue from the presidential campaign. An analysis by the National Taxpayers Union found that the new programs proposed by Barack Obama would increase federal spending by $343.6 billion, while John McCains’ would push expenditures up by $68.5 billion.

Both are essentially ignoring the entitlement crisis. Instead of adding to the spending burden by proposing new federal programs, Obama and McCain should get on board the SAFE bus.”

"The one thing we fail to talk about is those costs that you don't see on the bottom line. That is coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it's global warming. It's ruining our country, it’s ruining our world. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.”