The Democratic Blue Dog Coalition claims to be in favor of fiscal conservatism, but this report from Bloomberg questions that assertion:
U.S. Representative Jim Marshall is a Georgia Democrat and a member of his party?s Blue Dog Coalition, a group of lawmakers bound by a desire to restrain federal spending. The Blue Dogs have something else in common: a fondness for funding pet projects.
Marshall alone requested more than $12 billion worth of the so-called earmarks in the 2010 federal budget. His proposals range from $388,850 to aid 14 local farmers? markets to $4.2 billion to purchase C-17 heavy-lift transport aircraft.
Overall, Blue Dogs submitted more than 2,500 individual earmarks totaling some $20 billion. That underscores the conflict between their eagerness to bring federal money home and the coalition?s criticism of the budget as laden with pork.
North Carolina Democratic Congressmen Heath Shuler and Mike McIntyre are members of the Coalition. Taxpayers for Common Sense says that Shuler requested $4.4 million in earmarks and McIntyre $1.1 million in the omnibus spending bill for FY2009.
