What Is an Earmark?
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REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, D-FLA.: We have total transparency for our earmarks now. We all put our names next to them, own up to them.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CAVUTO: Well, I can transparently see — I can transparently see you are wasting money.
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CAVUTO: I tip my hat to say, you are transparent, and you are right, because I got this just looking up. You are very transparent.
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CAVUTO: And I was able to find out that you bragged about spending $20 million to help your constituents. Bravo for your constituents.
WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: I sure did. Rather than…
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CAVUTO: But if this is helping the greater nation, congresswoman, there are folks in Idaho, folks in Georgia, folks in Arizona looking at this and saying, what the heck? This is not infrastructure stuff. This is not helping our country.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Neil, 40 percent of the earmarks were sponsored by Republicans. And earmarks are so overblown. They're less than 1 percent...
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CAVUTO: You are right, Congresswoman. I blasted them, too.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Just because Republicans are wasting money doesn't make it right.
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WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Neil, please let me talk. Please let me talk.
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Well, that went well.
I guess it depends on what the meaning of the word, "is" is.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}What "is" an earmark? Apparently it's not spending a few hundred thousand on solar street lights. A congresswoman tells me that one is vital.
It is not a $400,000 campaign to end bullying in his district. The congressman bullying this earmark through apparently wanted to understand why bullies bully. I could have saved him the trouble: Look in the mirror.
And it is not all that money and more to get to the source of swine odor. Apparently it's vital. Not to the swine who smells — it doesn’t mind smelling. But to the politician who smells a financial windfall researching the obvious: swines smell.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Now, I'm being funny. But this is not funny.
It's not funny insisting your pork matters and the other guy's does not. That your bacon sizzles and his fizzles.
Pork is pork. Waste is waste. Because no matter how you dress up a swine, you're still a swine if you forced us to pay for the privilege.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}So you can say all you want that stopping bullies from teasing smelly swines who wander under garish solar street lights is progress. But it stinks.
It all stinks. Just like you do.
Because if it looks like a pig and smells like a pig, you know what? It's a cash cow. Only we're the ones getting creamed.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Watch Neil Cavuto weekdays at 4 p.m. ET on "Your World with Cavuto" and send your comments to cavuto@foxnews.com