How else would he fund his beloved cowboy poetry?
(Politico) — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave a forceful defense of congressional earmarks on Tuesday, a sign that bipartisan legislation to permanently ban pork-barrel spending will have a tough road in the Senate.
“I’ve done earmarks all my career, and I’m happy I’ve done earmarks all my career. They’ve helped my state, and they’ve helped different projects around the country,” an unapologetic Reid told reporters after the Democrats’ weekly caucus lunch. He called senators’ right to direct spending to pet projects in their home states is a “constitutional duty.”
“And I repeat, I will not stand by and be driven down this path … that I think is taking away from what the Founding Fathers wanted, three separate but equal branches of government,” he added. “I don’t believe that the White House has the authority to tell me how I should spend money in Nevada.”
Sens. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) introduced the permanent earmark ban as an amendment to a popular insider trading bill, known as the STOCK Act, that’s now being debated on the Senate floor.