I can't understand for the life of me how Jim Cooper, Mr. Fiscal Purity, who brags that he will not submit any earmark requests for fiscal 2009, can now say he's going to vote "yes" on the supplemental.
Cooper voted "no" on the supplemental the first time around. Maybe he'd like to explain how it got better? They added $108 billion in loan guarantees for the IMF, bulked it up with the $4 billion crappy "Cash for Clunkers" bill just to buy off members from auto manufacturing states, threw in some flu vaccines they wanted anyway, and made it into what Howie Klein calls a "Frankenstein" bill loaded with enough pork to bribe just about every member of congress.
This is the same Jim Cooper who is desperate to cut Social Security out of concern for out fiscal future. How exactly does he justify spending $108 to bail out European banks and their toxic assets?
Cooper is already getting hammered by people in his district who are unhappy that they can't get any help from their congressman for local projects like Nashville Metro General Hospital, which is in danger of closing. He just shrugs his shoulders and says what can he do, he just does not believe in earmarks.
It's against his principles, don't you know. European banks anxious to unload their toxic assets on American taxpayers will probably understand, but there will no doubt be others who find Cooper's rationalizations difficult to fathom.
Jane Hamsher is on Twitter and at Firedoglake