Tea Party Congressmen From Texas Love Their Earmarks

Brave, insightful, brilliant, not-at-all-crazy U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann founded the Congressional Tea Party Caucus to save America from Muslim presidents and stop federal spending by stopping earmarks, the modern term for pork-barrel projects.

Republicans in the Texas congressional delegation scampered to sign up. They didn’t quite scamper away from earmarks, though.

A new study by the Citizens Against Government Waste examines earmarks from Tea Party Caucus members and finds a cool billion dollars worth of it. And Texas representatives are a big part.

The list, with Houston-area reps bolded:

Joe Barton (R-TX) $12,269,400
Michael Burgess (R-TX) $15,804,400
John Carter (R-TX) $42,232,000
John Culberson (R-TX) $33,792,000 Louie Gohmert (R-TX) $7,099,000
Ralph Hall (R-TX) $12,232,000
Kenny Marchant (R-TX) 0
Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) 0
Ted Poe (R-TX) $7,913,000 Pete Sessions (R-TX) 0
Larry Smith (R-TX) $14,078,000

That’s upwards of $145 million in earmarks from these budget hawks. Way to go, guys.

This article appears in Dec 2-8, 2010.