Hillary’s Pay-To-Play

Ouch. The Los Angeles Times takes a look at Hillary Clinton's outsized use of earmarks, by far and away much larger than any other candidate and notes one other little detail. Many of the private companies receiving the earmark funds are also sending Hillary huge amounts of campaign cash. Pay-to play on and enormous scale that makes the Lincoln bedroom issue from a few years ago look like chump change.

Her record stands in contrast with others in the Senate seeking the presidency, particularly John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.). McCain, who has long opposed earmarks, does not write them. Obama has used the device, but now declines to earmark funds for private companies; he uses earmarks only to secure funds for government projects such as road building and hospital construction. Other senators seeking the presidency provide earmarks to home-state constituents and collect donations from recipients of the federal largesse. But The Times review found that Clinton does it on a different scale.

For example, in the appropriations bills that have passed the Senate so far this year, Clinton earmarked 216 separate projects for a total of $236.6 million. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) secured $112.8 million; Obama earmarked $90.4 million, and Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) earmarked projects totaling $70.8 million.

Since Clinton arrived in the Senate, she has collected in excess of $1 million from earmark beneficiaries and their associates.

"This pattern shows that Clinton has made aggressive use of the pay-to-play earmark game," said Keith Ashdown, research director for the Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington.

The practice of congressional earmarking has a long history. But in recent years, its use has skyrocketed, and earmarking has emerged at the center of high-profile scandals, including the one that sent former Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham of Rancho Santa Fe and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, both Republicans, to prison. Those scandals involved earmarks that led to the personal enrichment of lawmakers. There is no evidence of that in Clinton's case.

Because of the scandals, the practice of earmarking has become the subject of a heated debate among politicians, watchdog groups and good-government advocates.

Critics of earmarking object that it remains a relatively closed process that adds billions in spending directives, often over the objection of the president and Cabinet departments.

Specifically, Clinton has made sure that some 59 companies have received some $500 million in taxpayer money since taking office. In return, some 64% of those companies have funneled campaign money to her. That's pretty ugly. The LA Times isn't likely to be on Clinton's Christmas card list, is it? Stopping pork barrel spending is a bipartisan concern – everyone should be against politicians milking the system this way. Hillary Clinton's abuse of earmarks make her a poster child for why the system needs to be reformed.