Kline Playing Politics with Earmarks

[This is a letter to the editor, submitted to ThisWeek Eagan on February 23, 2008.]

Far from showing integrity, as another reader suggested, John Kline's position on earmarks is politics as usual.

An earmark is a congressional mandate that part of the budget must be spent on a given project. Earmarks can guarantee funding for worthwhile projects, and are only a problem when used for unnecessary boondoggles like Alaska's famed 'Bridge to Nowhere'. The solution is not to end earmarks, but to hold Congress accountable by identifying each earmark and the legislator who requested it.

John Kline put politics over principle and voted against earmark reform legislation last January, because it was more important to him to obstruct the new Democratic majority in Congress. Now he is playing political games by rejecting earmarks altogether, instead of doing his job to advocate for worthwhile projects in his district --- projects he acknowledges have merit. Some integrity.

We're Back --- Sort Of

Hello again.

If there's anyone out there still reading this, you may have noticed that I took a bit of a sabbatical. I'll get to the reasons for that in a minute.

First, I want to set expectations about what will appear here over the next 8+ months. I most certainly do not intend to continue posting at anything close to the rate I did while volunteering on the Rowley campaign. That experience left me tremendously burned out, and I'm not eager to go through it again.

But . . . I can't simply sit back and do nothing any longer, either. The Bush administration is still incompetent, corrupt, and the worst threat to the Constitution our nation has seen in my lifetime. To remain silent in the face of such malignant government is unconscionable. Compared to Bush, Cheney, Mukasey, et al, John Kline is small potatoes. But he's still their enabler, and still a poor representative for the people of Minnesota's 2nd congressional district. And if people like me don't work to send him back to Texas, he'll continue to collect taxpayer dollars while acting as a speed bump to progress for as long as he likes.

So, for now anyway, I've decided to wade back in to the shallow end of electoral politics, in the form of writing letters to the editor. No doubt Kline will not be the only target of these letters; Coleman and McCain will likely take their shots as well. And since many of these letters will never appear in print, I'll publish all of them here, just so the four or five people a day who accidentally browse past this blog might see them.

As to my reasons for the hiatus --- well, the fact of the matter is that I'm a family man with a full time job. I poured my heart and soul into the Rowley campaign 2 years ago because I believed Coleen Rowley would be effective in getting Congress to stand up and do its job to check Bush's power grabs. And I still believe she would do a better job of upholding the Constitution than at least 400 or so of the 435 House members currently serving.

But putting that much energy into a campaign while trying to keep up with my other responsibilities really took its toll. And I needed some time away from politics. A long time, as it turns out. And as I mentioned above, I have no intention of getting that deeply involved in any campaign this time around. Two years ago, Kline's folks attacked me, and attacked me hard because they seemed to think they needed to discredit me in order to discredit Coleen.

This time around, let me state clearly and unambiguously: I am not paid by, nor do I volunteer for any candidate for office at the state or federal level. Before it's all over, I might spend a weekend or two doorknocking; that's pretty much the most I'm likely to be involved in the campaign of any particular candidate.

As always, the views and opinions expressed here are mine alone.