The Solar Rhino

Another tip from Nation Reviews' blog, "The Corner", this time to a congressman from my own stomping grounds: Rep. John Boehner, R-West Chester, Ohio.

Apparently, this guy doesn't do pork! From the article:

And Boehner certainly could. As a senior Republican and committee chairman, his refusal to get pork has probably cost the district at least $100 million in lost funding over his 14 years.

Even better:

Boehner said he wants to leave highway funding decisions to professionals at the Ohio Department of Transportation. Boehner turned down $14 million in the current bill, which is stalled in Congress.

This isn't a fluke, this isn't a mistake, this isn't some sleight-of-hand by a guy who tells his constituants one thing while doing another:

"I told people in 1990 that if they thought that my job was to come to Washington and rob the federal treasury on their behalf, they were sending the wrong guy here," Boehner, 55, said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office. "I said it, I said I said it. I've said it ever since. It's just not why I'm here."

I don't know the guy. I've never heard him speak. He could be the biggest jerk on the planet. But for God's sake, people, let's get him promoted! If you're tired of waste, corruption, and the corrosive effect of federal manipulation of your tax dollars, let's make this man President.

Why you ask? What's wrong with Pork? Well, let me answer you with a questions: where in the Constitution does it give the Federal Government authority over local issues? I can tell you where it doesn't: in the Tenth Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

To get around that, Congress interferes in local affairs inside the states by

• collecting too much in taxes, starving local government
• Offer the money (and more! thanks to borrowing) back to local government through block grants... with strings

These strings are the problem. They give Federal officeholders from any state in the union influence over what happens in your state - influence that the founders explicitly chose not to give them.

So support your Constitution! Help elect Boehner for President! Or find a "Boehner" of your own, and send him or her to Congress. It's your duty as an partiotic American!