Though Rick Perry called Santorum out for taking earmarks, he failed to mention that Texas pays a lobbyist to do exactly the same thing. The Federal budget was designed to utilize earmarks, and monies not used go to the President to use at his own discretion. However, when Santorum realized that his colleagues were abusing the earmark system, he called for a moratorium.
Earmarks are an allocation process for a more efficient use of monies granted to a state. A representative can make sure that certain things get funded that a DC bureaucrat wouldn't know about. In addition, funds avoid going through liberal institutions (cf., James Inhofe, OK). For example, Rick was able to fund a Catholic hospital with money so it could buy medical equipment--something DC would not have done. Earmarks can serve a vital purpose, but once they started to be abused, Rick was against them.
But entitlements are worse than earmarks because earmarks make up only a tiny slice of the budget. Rick has been a leader in entitlement reform. John McCain, on the other hand, was a coward in entitlement reform, and in order to make himself look fiscally conservative, he took up the earmark cause.
Ron Paul loads bills that he KNOWS will pass without his support with earmarks. He brings home the money, but then he votes AGAINST the bill so that he can say that he never voted for an earmark.
Rick Santorum has been consistent and clear that out-of-control spending in Washington has to be stopped. In fact, Rick has relentlessly fought for a Balanced Budget Amendment, he exposed waste at the Pentagon, and his Welfare Reform Bill reformed an entitlement program and greatly reduced fraud, waste and abuse. Rick has never voted for a tax increase, and he supported a moratorium on earmarks.
Megyn Kelly asked Santorum about accusations in the ads including his support of the Gravina Island Bridge, more commonly referred to as the “Bridge to Nowhere”. When Santorum was in the U.S. Senate, he voted for the bridge in Alaska that if built would have cost taxpayers almost $400 million.
Santorum responded that the money came from an earmark that was going to Alaska. He went on to explain, “My determination on all these projects is, if this is money that’s going to the state and the senator from the state says that this is where I want to spend that money, who am I in Pennsylvania to tell the people in Alaska … what the priorities of the state of Alaska should be.”
He argued that holding down spending is the problem, not earmarks as suggested by Ron Paul. Santorum retorted, “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black, [Paul] was the number four earmarker in the United States Congress in the last few years. He’s a huge earmarker. The only difference with Ron Paul is he earmarks bills and then he doesn’t vote for them and says he is for lower spending.”
