The “bridge to nowhere” project in Alaska has become the national symbol of waste and out-of-control pork barrel spending – particularly since John McCain named Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Joe Biden is out every day spouting various versions of, “I got also a bridge I got to sell you here, and guess what, it’s in Alaska, and it goes nowhere.” Well guess what. Joe Biden and Barack Obama voted for that bridge: not once but twice.
And it gets even worse: CNN has the story, titled,”Biden, Obama helped keep ‘Bridge to nowhere’ alive“:
DEWEY BEACH, Delaware (CNN) — Although Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden routinely mocks his Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, for her onetime support of the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere,” Biden and his running mate voted to keep the project alive twice.
Both Biden and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama voted to kill a Senate amendment that would have diverted federal funding for the bridge to repair a Louisiana span badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina, Senate records show.
And both voted for the final transportation bill that included the $223 million earmark for the Alaska project.
An amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Oklahoma, would have stripped the money appropriated to connect the Alaskan coastal city of Ketchikan to its airport on sparsely populated Gravina Island and diverted the money to Louisiana.
But Biden and Obama and 80 of their colleagues rejected the measure, an amendment to a massive 2005 transportation bill that funded thousands of projects across the country.
“That is probably the most disturbing element of this and the campaigning on the Bridge to Nowhere,” said Bill Allison of the Sunlight Foundation, a taxpayer watchdog group. “Because, yes, they had a chance to vote specifically against the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska to redirect the money to people, to bridges and infrastructure damaged by Hurricane Katrina going in to New Orleans, and they chose not to.”
So why is Joe Biden running around repeatedly blasting Sarah Palin over the Bridge to nowhere? Because he’s a shameless political whore. Yes, Biden – along with Barack Obama – personally voted for the Bridge to nowhere. Twice. And yes, the second of those votes would have redirected the $223 million earmark for the bridge and spent it on Hurricane Katrina relief. But neither Biden nor Obama would support that Republican effort. They wanted that massive and wasteful pork barrel project.
They supported the Bridge to nowhere because they had their OWN pork barrel earmark projects. The CNN article continues:
“I got also a bridge I got to sell you here, and guess what, it’s in Alaska, and it goes nowhere,” Biden mocked Palin on the campaign trail last week in Maumee, Ohio. And in Canton, Ohio, he tied it to McCain.
“If you look at it John McCain’s answers for the economy, and we’re in such desperate shape, is the ultimate bridge to nowhere. It’s nowhere,” Biden said. “It takes you nowhere.”
But while the applause line appealed to the Democratic faithful, it could come back to bite the Delaware senator.
This year, Delaware has requested 116 congressional earmarks through Biden, its longtime senator, at a cost to taxpayers of $342 million. In an appearance on CNN’s “American Morning” with anchor John Roberts, Biden said that he had been open about those requests and that they all can be justified.
And Barack Obama received $740 million in earmarks for his state; and asked for a total of about $960 million. John McCain hasn’t asked for any earmarks for his state, and didn’t vote to fund the Bridge to nowhere.
I’ve written a couple of articles about Obama and Biden:
Presidential Pork: Obama-Biden In Hog Heaven; McCain Kosher
In The Earmark Game Obama Beats McCain 740 Million To Nothing
Joe Biden mockingly claims that McCain’s answers on the economy is the ultimate bridge to nowhere. But John McCain stood up on earmarks, while Joe Biden and Barack Obama have cynically gorged on pork, waste, and downright fraud.
We’re to the point where our politicians and officials are little spending this nation out of existence. Obama and Biden are and have been part of the problem; John McCain, by stark contrast, has epitomized the solution to out-of-control government spending.
Obama-Biden are the “Politicians to nowhere.”