Keith Ashdown Quotations

The other reason you see Murtha get so much is because Young does not ask for very much.

The fact is, there are not the checks and balances to make sure the money is spent well.

We used to think that Mr. Lewis would be a champion for smart spending. But he brought us the biggest increase in defense earmarking in history.

The only issue will be how is Congress going to react.

Senators are betting that pandering to the public with billions in election-year promises will pay off more than they lose by cutting the fiscal conservatives in their own party off at the knees.

Most other lobbyists would give up their second lung to get that kind of access. It's not always illegal, but it's definitely a strategy of influence that's unparalleled.

One of the challenges of defense earmarks -- when you get initial bill 3 or 4 percent has a location tied to the earmark, then look at 535 releases and triangulate to figure out where the money is going.

If they're telling everybody to tighten their belts and they're leasing these luxury cars, it just doesn't fly in Peoria.

I have better things to do than hunting around for where the money is hidden, ... We would rather the government be doing this, creating a one-stop shop. Is that really too much to ask?

I give him a C-minus. It's better than we've had, but we've got a long way to go to get this federal fiscal house in order. ... I would give him a much higher grade if he had vetoed just one (spending) bill.

He's basically judge, jury and executioner for all this money.

The only thing I think can happen is that (Congress enacts) a very large, across-the-board cut, ... and nobody is talking about that. Every major program has an 800-pound gorilla protecting it.

It is a good reform. It creates an added deterrent to things being added (to conference reports) at the last minute.

Lawmakers are not trying to win campaign cash. They are trying to make sure that they employ thousands of people.

Our Iraq presence isn't going away; the only thing going away is the people watching how the money is being spent. If you don't have anyone watching it, the precedent is that the money will be wasted.

Pigs will fly before we cut this pork. I don't know how we'll make this happen.

We've known for years that there are some easy things on paper. But it's politically hard to limit the budgetary footprint of the federal government. Any item you try and cut, you're going to tick off an 800-pound gorilla that fights with a sledgehammer.

Transparency is the best disinfectant. If they would disclose everything and give the public time to review it, that would change the discourse dramatically.

You know how they call Vancouver 'North Hollywood'? Well, Alaska could become 'North North Hollywood,'

We considered it one of the worst items in the bill. It's a slush fund for the oil and gas industry that would have been in the backyard of one of the more powerful members in Congress.

We would have been much, much better off with no bill. Everything they did, there's a simple way around it.

Those 2,966 earmarks are a symptom of a disease that is preventing our troops from getting the tools they need.

With all these new programs, the administration's contention that the deficit will be cut in half in the next five years is a tall tale, derived in large part by omitting very likely or inevitable costs, including costs for proposals the administration itself hopes and intends to support.

There are probably thousands of businesses that need this type of help, but this happens to be in the back yard of the lawmaker who runs the subcommittee.

This sets the stage for some very, very interesting hearings next week.

This shows the best government contractors don't always get hired, the most politically influential do. We need to strive for more competitive bidding.

We will learn months after the money was wasted or stolen that it was wasted and stolen.

Under this bill, Duke Cunningham still would be able to get away with trading bribes for earmarks.

We need to get out of the business of subsidizing people who are in harm's way.

We're supposed to be protecting the victims of the storms, not the people insuring them.

There could be a loophole of hundreds of thousands of people who would not be impacted. On a percentage of their income, they're the ones that are feeling (the cost increase) a lot, lot more. Some of us have been kicked, but they've been kicked in the teeth.

This bill will be known as the most earmarked transportation bill in the history of our nation.

This is absolute highway robbery and it really does show that the agency doesn't have a clue in getting real value of contracts. I've done the math in my head 100 times and I don't know how they computed this cost.

They've created a complicated scheme of making sure a lot of different profitable energy industries are going to make off like bandits, ... pad their bottom line, but it doesn't really create new behavior in the energy industry.

They're going to go with what they know. There is some type of relationship.

They're a little late to the parade, but I still think it's an important step to make sure this whole sort of embarrassing era has ended.

They're not really sure if they're going to get anything that actually will work in a real-time effort like Iraq. It's frustrating in that most taxpayers are going to say we need to keep our troops safe.

There's a lot of money in this bill, but bar none we consider the documentary the most egregious provision because it has absolutely nothing to do with alleviating the traffic problems in this nation.

There's definitely a need to get the money on the ground fast. But I don't think any of these proposals would do that. What I see them doing is lessening the transparency. It's the opposite of the way we should be going. We need to know more so we can know if all this money is being spent in a wise and responsible manner.

It's just become a budget gimmick on steroids. It just gives them a chance to take those costs off budget.

It's a challenge. We're really trying to get blood out of a stone, politically.

It's a real question of who's minding the store. It creates doubt in the investments we're making.

It's trickle-down contracting: You're paying a cut at every level, and it makes the final cost exponentially more expensive than it needs to be. And in almost every case, the local people who really need to be making the money are at the bottom of these upside-down pyramid schemes.

It looks like they're going to do what they should have done in the first place. There's been a lot of pressure on them to make sure that the economic benefit of these contracts stays in the Gulf Coast and doesn't flow to corporate boardrooms thousands of miles away. So in that respect, this is good news.

It's hard to turn around a train in Washington, and they deserve credit.

It's sending shivers down the spines of a lot of senators. They've thrown down the gauntlet here to other people. I believe this is probably a bargaining chip to try to move senators down the road to more earmarking reform.

Dave Weldon is the one who loses the most here because he isn't going out of his way to show his complete record. He's going to let this case cloud his reputation.

It's not a question of when, it's now.

It's ironic. This program was set up to save money. But because of poor oversight, it has spent money like Paris Hilton at a shoe sale.

The last thing on people's minds are these good investments. We are making terrible decisions on where money goes.

If Katherine Harris put out the list, then 534 other members can do it too.

I guarantee we're going to come back to this after everything has been reviewed and find we paid Nordstrom prices when we should have been paying Wal-Mart costs.

Instead of the Air Force acting as an independent reviewer of this nearly $30 billion deal, they've acted as a silent business partner of Boeing.

If you're a lobbyist, you've got the Washington version of the scarlet letter tattooed on your back right now.

but it is only a small snapshot of what is going on.

You can't treat the Congress like they're a bunch of buzzing flies around your head, ... They're your bosses because they represent the American taxpayers.

You can't single him out. It is standard procedure.

And in almost every case, the local people who really need to be making the money are at the bottom of these upside-down pyramid schemes.