The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is calling Rep. Robin Hayes' Democrat challenger a flip-flopper. That might be good if both men were lounging along the North Carolina coast, but Larry Kissell can't seem to figure out where he stands on federal earmarks.
According to the NRCC, Kissell told the media in January that earmarks favor special-interest groups. Then in March, he told The Hill, a congressional newsletter, that he would favor earmarks to get badly needed projects to the 8th district.
According to The Insider, the NRCC said in a news release that "he can't make up his mind on whether he supports or opposes earmarks".
Kissell told the Fayetteville Observer (3/24/08) that "we need to get the rate of return up when it comes to what we send Washington versus what we get back..."
Your blogger believes that Kissell is showing his sour grapes on this issue. KCC understands that ALL lawmakers must show leadership and refuse earmarks and pork projects for real reform to take effect.
It seems to this blogger, that if elected, Kissell would just be another David Price. Price routinely comes back to his district to crow about all the pork and earmarks he has brought home. That's not the kind of leadership North Carolina needs in Washington.
Hat Tip: The Insider
Augustus Cho, candidate for Congress from the 4th District, criticized Congressman David Price today over his comments about earmarks.
“According to David Price, taxpayers do not need to worry about earmarks. I beg to differ,” Cho said. “Earmarks are the most egregious examples of the Democrats’ inability to control government spending.”
Price spoke Wednesday at the Cary Chamber of Commerce. According to the News and Observer, Price said that the recent attention to earmarks was unwarranted and exaggerated. Price said “Everybody should take a deep breath.”
“When I get to Congress, I will not support earmarks,” declared Cho. “The problem with these expenditures is that they are slipped into bills at the end of debate or even after a bill has passed in the summary language. If a proposal cannot withstand the scrutiny of debate and transparency, then it has no business being included in any bill.”
“David Price may not have a problem with earmarks, but the voters of the 4th District do. We do not support spending tax dollars for the pet projects of Congressmen buying votes for their re-election, and frankly, not even projects in our own district that do not merit full debate and disclosure."
In other campaign news, Cho announced last week that three well-respected legislators endorsed his campaign. Former state Rep. Russell Capps (R-Wake), Rep. Paul Stam (R-Wake), and NC Senator Neal Hunt (R-Wake) all are backing Cho's Congressional bid. Cho is being challenged in the GOP primary by BJ Lawson, a political newcomer.
Cho, who lives in Chapel Hill, is the past chairman of the Orange County Republican Party and a member of the Chapel Hill Board of Transportation. Cho, a naturalized American citizen, joined his mother in the United States in 1968, and attended Linton Hall Military School in Bristow, VA. The family moved to Durham in 1973. Cho graduated from Sanderson High School in Raleigh, the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, majoring in Economics, and Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He is an author, and, until recently, a columnist.
Editor's Note: Your blogger was the Director of Public and Governmental Affairs at the Cary Chamber of Commerce from 1993-1995. Everytime your blogger wrote something negative in the Chamber newletter about the Congressman, his office would be calling to have him speak to the group.
Thus, the Cary Chamber hosted Price regularly and he and his merry band of liberal tax bandits would show up in force. Your blogger can now say, many years later, that she was sickened by Price's lies and failure to answer straight questions.
Price prances around straight-forward questions like the winner of "Dancing With the Stars".
Look for more from Price on this blog in the coming months.
Americans for Prosperity’s North Carolina State Director Dallas Woodhouse (left) today released the following statement in response to U.S. Rep. David Price’s statement that costly and often-corrupt pork-barrel earmarks have “gotten a bad rap,” and his suggestion that taxpayer advocates who question the practice “take a deep breath” :
“Congressman Price’s defense of the earmarking system shows just how out of touch he is with North Carolina’s taxpayers.
“He claims that pork-barrel earmarks don’t lead to extra spending, but the fact is earmarks are routinely used to buy votes for bloated spending bills that would never pass if nearly every Member of Congress didn’t have a pet project in them.
“Congressman Price claims that he opposes funding for unworthy “road to nowhere” projects, yet last year he opposed all 50 proposed amendments that would have killed funding for questionable projects all over the country. Among the projects that Congressman Price deemed worthy of North Carolinians’ tax dollars: $50,000 for a Mule and Packers Museum in California, $150,000 for the American Ballet Theater in New York City, $200,000 for a Lobster Institute in Maine, and $100,000 to build a prison museum in Kansas.
“Are these really necessary projects that North Carolina’s hard-working taxpayers need to be funding? Congressman Price apparently thinks so, and that shows just how out of touch is really is.”
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