Toomey for Senate

Allentown, PA – U.S. Senate candidate Pat Toomey welcomed Joe Sestak to the fight against wasteful earmark spending after Sestak put out a press release (01/21/10) urging Congress to move from the earmarking process to the more competitive grant process. But Toomey questioned Sestak’s commitment to the cause given his long list of votes in FAVOR of the very kind of wasteful pork projects he is now campaigning against.

Let’s take a little trip down memory lane.

In 2009, Joe Sestak had 68 opportunities to vote to get rid of specific outlandish pork-barrel projects, and he rejected EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. These votes included some of the most egregious waste of taxpayer dollars, and still, Joe Sestak said NO every single time. In 2007, Sestak had 50 opportunities to vote to get rid of outlandish pork-barrel projects, and rejected ALL BUT ONE. When it comes to earmarks, it appears that Joe Sestak likes to speak out against them on the campaign trail, but when he’s in Washington, he joins Nancy Pelosi in supporting the worst examples of earmark abuse nearly every single time.

Here are just a few examples of wasteful earmarks that Sestak had a clear shot at voting to reject, but refused to:

- $325,000 for the Institute for Seafood Studies in Thibodaux, Louisiana. (RC #382, 06/18/09)

- $250,000 for the Monroe County Farmer's Market in Tompkinsville, Kentucky. (RC #631, 07/23/09)

- $150,000 for the restoration of Tarrytown Music Hall in Tarrytown, New York. (RC #472, 06/26/09)

- $100,000 for the Myrtle Beach Conference Center in South Carolina. (RC #567, 07/16/09)

- $90,000 for the Commercial Kitchen Business Incubator project in Watsonville, California. (RC #565, 07/16/09)

- $1 million for potato research in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. (RC # 507, 07/09/09)

- $50,000 for the National Mule and Packers Museum in California. (RC #700, 06/24/07)

- $34 million for the Alaska Native Education Equity program. (RC #654, 07/18/07)

- $2 million to establish the "Rangel Center for Public Service" at City College of New York, requested by none other then Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY). (RC #678, 07/19/07)

“Two questions come to mind when looking at Joe’s record on pork-barrel spending,” said Toomey Communications Director Nachama Soloveichik. “Does Joe Sestak think spending taxpayer dollars on these projects was a worthwhile use of their hard-earned money? And does Joe Sestak think he can be an effective advocate for reforming Washington’s wasteful earmarking system when he has been part of the problem from day one?”

“Clearly, taxpayers need a committed advocate like Pat Toomey who has a proven record of opposing wasteful earmarks and fighting for fiscal discipline in Washington.”

Let’s compare:

- When Pat was in Congress he voted many times to eradicate wasteful pork projects, including subsidies for mohair (RC #383, 07/11/00); wood research programs (RC #160, 05/26/99); the Center for Peanut Competitiveness (RC #161, 05/26/99); and asparagus research (RC #360, 06/29/00).

- Pat often stood on the front lines of this fight. In 2002, he even led an effort to derail a Republican appropriations bill because it spent too much money. (RC #305, 07/16/02) (AP, 07/17/02) When was the last time Joe Sestak offered an amendment to eliminate wasteful spending?

- Pat received a 95% lifetime rating from the leading nonpartisan fiscal watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste. Joe Sestak received a disappointing 8%.

- Pat received praise from many non-political sources for his fiscal discipline and his principled fight against wasteful government spending:

- “After having talked in his 1998 campaign about going to Congress to work toward fiscal discipline, he put his principles ahead of party-line obedience. The best illustration of this came in March of this year when he pulled enough conservative allies together to force Speaker Dennis Hastert to negotiate with him to set aside $4 billion in projected surplus funds for debt reduction.” – Morning Call Editorial, 10/15/00

- “During a time of $400 billion deficits and economic hardship, it is crucial that the government rein in the purse strings and keep spending to a minimum. Rep. Toomey understands the importance of fiscal responsibility as exemplified by his actions . . . Other members of Congress should follow Rep. Toomey’s lead and cut wasteful spending rather than just increasing the deficit.”

– Tom Schatz, President, Citizens Against Government Waste, 07/10/03 The difference is clear: in Pat Toomey, Pennsylvanians can elect someone with a long and distinguished record of opposing wasteful spending that comes from both Republicans and Democrats; in Joe Sestak, Pennsylvanians have someone who cannot even bring himself to stop spending our money on a Mule and Packers Museum in California.