Lamborn touts vote to spend $690 billion on military this year

Just as Republican lawmakers promote their plan to slash federal spending by turning Medicare into a new-style voucher program, come the eye-popping numbers tied to the National Defense Authorization Act. Colorado Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn, who has praised the proposed Medicare cuts and led the charge to slash federal funding for popular programs like public broadcasting this year as necessary belt-tightening, is celebrating his vote to spend $690 billion on the military next year.

VIDEO: Lamborn simply seeking to free NPR of taxpayer subsidies

Colorado Springs Republican Rep. Doug Lamborn said that, in leading the charge to strip National Public Radio of taxpayer support, he is aiming simply to “let loose” the station to thrive in the free market. In a round of interviews Thursday held just before and after the House voted along party lines to pass his “defund NPR” bill, he said he was not acting out of partisan motives.

Anti-earmark Tea Party caucus member Lamborn used to be earmark crazy

Colorado Republican Congressman Doug Lamborn has come out strong this year against earmarks. He joined the Tea Party caucus dedicated to fighting government waste and he enthusiastically signed onto the GOP House pledge against earmarking, or the practice of tacking on projects to legislation in order to deliver tax money to favored constituencies and causes. Lamborn wrote an editorial for his hometown Colorado Springs Gazette against earmarks last Saturday, a feel good Thanksgiving treat for the Gazette’s conservative readers.

He left out the fact that he has been earmark crazy since he arrived in Washington in 2007.

Senate warily eyes post-earmark era

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s vote by Senate Republicans to self-impose a two-year moratorium on earmark requests, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) released a statement indicating his avowed, albeit somewhat conflicted, support for the idea.

New Order: McConnell faces off with DeMint on earmarks

From the perspective of many conservatives, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is doing himself and Republicans a lot of harm by fighting Sen. Jim DeMint’s (R-S.C.) proposal to ban requests for earmarks among Republicans in next year’s Senate. The first reason,…

Colorado’s piece of omnibus pork

Taxpayers for Common Sense has put out its “Version Three” spreadsheet of earmarks contained in the omnibus spending bill for Fiscal Year 2009. It’s an Excel document that can be searched by bill, earmark, representative, senator, state and more!

The Colorado delegation pulled down its share of cash, but none of the state’s officials ranked among the top earmark getters.

Congress takes a crack at corruption

When it’s hard to convict a congressman who accepts a briefcase full of $100 bills from undercover FBI agents in a hotel lobby and then bundles them in tinfoil packets and stuffs $90,000 worth of them into his freezer, you know there’s just something plain broken about the laws governing political corruption in this country.

You know it. I know it. And Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter knows it.

Perlmutter gives tainted money from defense contractor lobbyist to charity

Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter denied any wrongdoing Thursday in discussing earmarks the congressman secured for defense consultancy IHS, Inc., a client of disintegrating lobby firm PMA, which is under investigation by the FBI.

Lamborn: No link between campaign cash and appropriations

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.) has issued a statement insisting campaign contributions have nothing to do with appropriations requests, despite mounting evidence that the lobbying firm PMA secured lucrative government contracts for its clients by orchestrating a series of campaign donations to lawmakers, including Lamborn.

PMA pork-for-pay and the old nontransparency

Republican Rep. Jeff Flake from Arizona is making a name for himself rooting out earmarks to indict the professionalized “pay-to-play” culture of Congress. His Web site tracks the fruits of his investigation so far, listing earmarks tied to clients of embattled big-time lobbying firm PMA, which doled out campaign contributions to members of Congress across the country, including Colorado’s Ed Perlmutter, Mark Udall and Doug Lamborn. This morning Flake had an op-ed in the New York Times on the unspooling scandal.