Interesting numbers on GOP spending...
Scott Lilly of the Center for American Progress, who spent years on the Appropriations staff, agrees. He is directing journalists to a report the Congressional Research Service released two days before Bush’s address. It’s called “Earmarks in Appropriations Acts: FY 1994 . . . FY 2005″, and it documents Bush’s indifference to the earmarked items tacked onto bills by individual legislators.
• The VA, HUD, and other agencies’ appropriations bills included 469 individual earmarks in 2000. The number had gone up to 2,080 by 2005.
• Defense Department earmarks increased from 997 in 2000 to 2,506 in 2005.
• Labor, Health and Human Services and Education earmarks soared from 491 in 2000 to 3,014 in 2005.
• At Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary, earmarks went from 361 in 2000 to 1,722 in 2005.
