Desperate debunkers resort to attacking Congressman on amount of money he requests for shrimp research, while Giuliani's rampant corruption is ignored
Fox News are so desperate to dig up any dirt on Ron Paul, that one of their flagship shows last night resorted to attacking him over the amount of federal funding he requested for shrimp research.
Texas congressman and Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul — who is campaigning as a critic of congressional overspending — has revealed that he is requesting $400 million worth of earmarks this year," reported the Brit Hume show.
The Wall Street Journal reports Paul's office says those requests include $8 million for the marketing of wild American shrimp and $2.3 million to pay for research into shrimp fishing.
A spokesman says, "Reducing earmarks does not reduce government spending, and it does not prohibit spending upon those things that are earmarked. What people who push earmark reform are doing is they are particularly misleading the public — and I have to presume it's not by accident."
The Texas Lone Star Times also ran with the shrimp hit piece, which originated with an article in the Wall Street Journal.
If Ron Paul's biggest skeleton in the closet is the amount of money his district spends on shrimp research, then the establishment media are going to have a difficult time maintaining their assault on his credibility as they panic in fear at the Congressman's runaway popularity.
The Congressman himself explained why earmarks have no relation to cutting the federal budget in a June 2007 article.
Though much attention is focused on the notorious abuses of earmarking, and there are plenty of examples, in fact even if all earmarks were eliminated we would not necessarily save a single penny in the federal budget. Because earmarks are funded from spending levels that have been determined before a single earmark is agreed to, with or without earmarks the spending levels remain the same. Eliminating earmarks designated by Members of Congress would simply transfer the funding decision process to federal bureaucrats rather then elected representatives. In an already flawed system, earmarks can at least allow residents of Congressional districts to have a greater role in allocating federal funds – their tax dollars – than if the money is allocated behind locked doors by bureaucrats. So we can be critical of the abuses in the current system but we shouldn't lose sight of how some reforms may not actually make the system much better.
Their desperation in scraping the barrel to uncover any dirt on Paul previously yielded the equally shocking scandal of one his aides having written fifteen years ago about crime figures and black people - another feeble jab that fizzled into nothing.
Compare the egregious and rampant corruption of Rudy Giuliani with Ron Paul's alleged shrimp overspend and ask yourself why Fox News isn't running hit pieces on the Nosferatu of the Republican presidential race.
As we reported yesterday, Fox News attempted to smear Paul by debunking the 9/11 truth movement and then associating it with the Texas Congressman.
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