Peggy Noonan Quotes
George W. Bush is a big spender…. When Congress sends up a bill with big. fat, crackling pork, he says, “Where’s the barbecue sauce?”
Peggy Noonan, Presidential speech writer (Republican), Quoted on NBC Meet the Press, September 25, 2005
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
This quotation pithily summarizes a common problem in politics of describing budgets. In most years there has been a national inflation. If a new budget is, in actual dollars, the same as the previous years or a little more, but the increase is less than the inflation level, the agency will not be able to provide the same level of services as the previous year. Therefore services will be cut and those who are politically in favor of more money for the program legitimately describe this as a “budget cut”. Opponents of larger funding increases, also legitimately describe the funding as a “budget increase”. One side refers to what the money can buy and the other, to the absolute dollars spent. This is an example of the classical ambiguity of political oratory.
Louis had maintained that the earmark was a cowardly and corrupt way of a congressman bringing pork back to their districts and paying back campaign contributors. He argued that if what the Congressmen were doing were right, why not introduce a bill publicly, debate it, defend it, and try to get a majority for it rather than sneak it in some large piece of legislation without anyone knowing who even introduced the legislation or got the pork into the bill.
He was one of the few Congressman who never engaged in the shady practice of earmarking appropriations for their own districts, states, constituents and lobbyists who contribute to their campaigns. However, like almost all members of Congress, he was very aggressive in seeking and supporting programs for his district.
Margaret Ellen "Peggy" Noonan is a weekly columnist for The Wall Street Journal, and contributor to NBC News and ABC News. She was a primary speechwriter and Special Assistant to President Ronald Reagan from 1984 to 1986 and has maintained a center-right leaning in her writings since leaving the Reagan administration. Five of Noonan's books have been New York Times bestsellers.
