The infamous Cornhusker Kickback which helped get Obamacare enacted into law and effectively ended Ben Nelson’s Senate career has now been joined by the Kentucky Kickback in the checkered legislative history of the health care law.
Tucked into the “deal” to end the government shutdown, raise the debt ceiling and keep Obamacare intact is an additional $2 billion plus of spending for a dam in Republican Leader and lead negotiator Mitch McConnell’s home state.
McConnell incredibly claims no knowledge of how this earmark got into the bill and his staff pointed to equally politically beleaguered Tennessee Senator Lamar Alexander as the person who put it into the law.
As a personal disclaimer, I worked for Senator McConnell’s wife, Secretary Elaine L. Chao, for two and a half years at the Department of Labor. Chao, will go down in history as the greatest Republican Labor Secretary in history, as she imposed budget restraint on the Department, implemented union transparency laws that increased union leadership accountability to their membership, and overturned a Department wide culture that favored organized labor over job creation.
I like and respect Secretary Chao, but the audacity of the Kentucky Kickback cannot be swept under the rug.
It symbolizes everything that is wrong with Washington, D.C. and will likely become this election cycles equivalent of the “Bridge to Nowhere” in ads run against McConnell and Senate Republicans by his deal making partner Harry Reid.
In fact, McConnell’s in-state and D.C. political opponents could not have asked for a better present than this government works pork. It is almost like he was set up, but we know he wasn’t.
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Rick Manning (@rmanning957) is the Vice President of Public Policy and Communications for Americans for Limited Government.
16 comments
I love it when the circular firing squad locks & loads.
You gotta pass it to know what’s in it tends to cost only, We the People.
Grammar seems to be lost on you.
Most of us here have a life and don’t give a shit.
Do ya really think I care what a Drug Dealer thinks of my grammar, ya must be a using some of those there drugs you are a dealin.
McConnell has no idea how it got there, but rest assured, he’ll take credit for it in some ad of his next year.
Here’s one for you, the Transportation Cabinet of Kentucky released a letter yesterday, 10/16/13, giving notice that they will be soliciting bids for a NEW 3,600’± bridge over Kentucky Lake on highway 68. They are having a contractor information meeting on October 22, 2013 at 1:30PM at Kenlake State Resort Park, Hardin, Kentucky. They had this thing ready and waiting for the cave, they had to have known the money was coming, that’s why they did the shutdown and backed up against the debt ceiling deadline, so they could get personal favors out of the deal and using their position to force that deal. The Republicans, though not all, are in it with the Democrats and they are divvying up our money.
Omission – the letter states it is a federally funded project.
Crooked piece of crap!
Mitch McConnell got his 30 pieces of silver.
With inflation, it was 8,223,684 pieces of silver (assuming the pieces are “American Eagles” as a net price of $24 per)
Translation: “overturned a Department wide culture that favored organized labor over job creation.” really means “…overturned a Department wide culture that favored organized labor over moneyed interests.”
Who is surprised? The is GOP “Business as Usual.” Fiscal Responsibility and budget cuts are only for the projects and programs they don’t like or that don’t help their constituents.
Please, Harry Reid and Yucca Mountain, Nelson’s Cornhusker Kickback, Landrieu’s Louisiana purchase…
I never said Dems were blameless. But the Repubs love defense spending and its pet contractors, cushy earmarks, farm subsidies, corporate welfare schemes, etc., etc. The Dems didn’t shut down the government over debt, or was it the budget, or was it Obamacare? What was it?
Help…. mithter Withard!
Could be true. Might believe this story, if it weren’t on FITS. I’ll never forget this boy his start by claiming to have an affair with a married woman. Her kids be damned. However, it can be educational to occasionally click on certain Google news alerts, just to see what the ‘fringe’ is saying that day. This story could be true. You just never can tell on this blog.