Senate votes down ban on earmarks, 39-56 - The Hill's On The Money

Senate votes down ban on earmarks, 39-56 - The Hill's On The Money

In a show of bipartisan support the Senate voted down an amendment that would have banned all earmarks for 2012 and 2013. Voters went to the mid-term voting booths with one message in mind - stop spending that increases the deficit.

"I believe I have an important responsibility to the state of Illinois and the people I represent to direct federal dollars into projects critically important for our state and our future," Durbin said. I think this is telling and really disturbs me. The money that our Federal Government brings in should be going for Federal Projects and not State projects. This reliance by States on Federal handouts is just another reason why we have seen an erosion in the 10th Amendment and a lack of accountability of the Federal Government by the States. Sen. Durbin is correct that he has the responsibility to ensure that Illinois has a voice at the Federal level but it should be directed at protecting the Rights of Illinois to be free of Federal mandates like "No Child Left Behind", highway funding, and the health care mandate to name a few.

We need to start electing officials that are willing to go to Washington D.C. and wrestle back control that the States have willfully lost through decades of poor representation of their elected House of Representatives and Senators. That is part of the message, I believe, the Tea Party movement is trying to assert. To allow the further erosion of the 10th Amendment is to put the United States on the same financial footing as Greece and Ireland.

On a side note I started reading a book my daughter gave me for my birthday: Lincoln President-elect: Abraham Lincoln and the Great Secession Winter 1860-1861 by Harold Holzer