Long regarded as political identical twins, differences are finally starting to emerge between Fourth District Republican Rep. Todd Tiahrt and First District Republican Rep. Jerry Moran, the two contenders for Sam Brownback's soon-to-be-vacant U.S. Senate seat.

For example, the Congress voted $2 billion to help maintain the “Cash for Clunkers” program with mixed support coming from the Kansas delegation. President Barack Obama also signed the funding initiative today.

Brownback, Tiahrt, and Rep. Dennis Moore — a Democrat — voted in favor of the legislation, while Moran, Rep. Lynn Jenkins and Sen. Pat Roberts voted against the bill.

Aaron Trost, spokesperson for the Moran campaign, said Moran voted against the bill because he was concerned with its price tag.

“Jerry is very concerned with how easily Congress and President Obama can spend huge amounts of money,” Trost told Kansas Liberty. “There are also some legitimate concerns about how the program has been administered when we are already running up the national debt.”

Tiahrt said he voted for the bill “to help consumers, middle class families and small businesses in Kansas.

“The program is not perfect, but it will help our economy in a small way,” Tiahrt told Kansas Liberty. “However, we really need to be focused on growing our economy from the ground up through tax relief and by limiting the size and scope of the federal government.”

The House approved refunding the Car Allowance Rebate System last Friday when it voted 316-109 to allocate $2 billion more to the program. The Senate successfully signed off on the funding yesterday with a vote of 60-37. Brownback was one of only seven Republicans who voted for the bill.

The “clunkers” initiative was introduced as a type of stimulus plan in which inefficient vehicles can be traded in for new, approved fuel-efficient models. The government buys the older vehicles from the owner for $3,500 to $4,500 in taxpayer dollars and then the vehicles are scrapped.

The program initially received $1 billion and was supposed to run until November or until funds for the initiative ran out. Because of the program’s popularity, funding for the program began to dwindle, forcing Congress to take emergency action on the bill last week.

The $2 billion is reportedly being channeled away from a different stimulus project, though some Republicans have voiced concern that the program the funds are being taken from will be replaced, thus adding $2 billion to the federal deficit.

The “clunkers” stimulus plan was not the only policy split to appear between Tiahrt and Moran last week. The two legislators also differed on amendments offered to the defense appropriations bill that would have stripped earmarks from legislation.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense, the bill had 1,116 earmarks, or as they are more commonly referred to, “pork-barrel projects,” that totaled $2.75 billion.

The Sunlight Foundation, a group dedicated to transparency in government, refers to an earmark as “a line-item that is inserted into a bill to direct funds to a specific project or recipient without any public hearing or review” and notes that the funds are usually directed in a way that would be politically beneficial for the lawmakers who introduced it.

The series of amendments to defund earmarks were brought by Rep. Jeff Flake, a Republican from Arizona. Though each of Flake’s amendments failed, they did gain a decent amount of Republican support, including support from Moran. On roll call, Tiahrt voted against nine of the amendments; one of the amendments was defeated by voice vote.

“Members of Congress should not have the ability to award no-bid contracts to their campaign contributors,” said Flake in a statement about the series of amendments. “It’s difficult for taxpayers to look at this process and not see pay-to-play politics at its worst.”

Moran voted in favor of each of the Flake amendments. Trost said Moran has been consistent in voting down wasteful earmarks.

“Congressman Moran has been a leading voice in Congress on reform of earmarks and Jerry has voted against wasteful earmarks time and time again,” Trost said.

Tiahrt’s press secretary, Wendy Knox, said Tiahrt voted against Flake’s amendments because of the negative impact they could have on the Kansas economy.

“Congressman Tiahrt voted in favor of Kansas jobs and Kansas workers,” Knox said in an interview with Kansas Liberty.

Flake had actually filed more than 552 amendments, but could only offer 10. One of the amendments offered that Tiahrt voted against was an attempt to delete 75 earmarks, which, according to Flake, would have lead to more than $200 million being allotted to clients of the lobbying firm Paul Magliocchetti and Associates.

The amendment failed on a 118-304 vote.

The defense-lobbying group is now out of business and is under federal investigation because of its allegedly corrupt activities. Among the alleged activities is donating money to lawmakers to secure earmarks for its clients.

The House ethics committee is also investigating the lobbying firm's possible connections between lawmakers and earmarks.

The $636 billion defense bill ended up passing with $2.7 billion in earmarks, some of which were contributed by Moran and Tiahrt. According to a Taxpayers for Common Sense report, Moran added two earmarks to the defense appropriations bill totaling $4.5 million, while Tiahrt added 14 earmarks totaling $45 million.

Trost said Moran was willing to support these particular earmarks because they were for public purposes.

“These two requests were for public entities in Kansas, in particular the Air Force and the Air National Guard,” Trost said. “Jerry voted for the Flake amendments because they eliminated 540 earmarks worth approximately $1.3 billion and all of those earmarks were awarded to private companies. Jerry strongly supports reform of the earmarking process especially relating to earmarks for private companies.”

Tiahrt also stood by his decision to secure funding through the earmarks and issued a statement saying the $45 million and his support for various elements of the defense appropriations bill will help to create more than 2,400 jobs in Kansas.

"As families continue to suffer during this economic recession, these projects are very much needed and represent good news for our region,” Tiahrt said in the statement.

Knox said Tiahrt was also touching on defeating Flake’s attempts to strip earmarks from the bill in the statement, when Tiahrt said, “Thankfully, we were able to defeat attempts to cut funding for troop armor and technology enhancements. Not only would critical resources for our armed forces have been eliminated, but projects directly supporting thousands of Kansas workers (2,400) would have been cut as well. We cannot afford to lose thousands of jobs that support the efforts of our warfighters overseas.”

Resources

Previously on Kansas Liberty
http://www.kansasliberty.com/opinions/editorials-from-other-kansas-leaders/bill-wyckoff/a-clunker-is-still-a-clunker/

Cash for clunkers web site
http://www.cars.gov/

Tiahrt release on defense appropriations bill
http://tiahrt.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=114&parentid=22&sectiontree=5,22,114&itemid=1265

Rep Flake release on amendments to defense bill
http://flake.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=140216

Sunlight Foundation on earmarks
http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/earmarksFAQ/

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