{"id":1910,"date":"2006-06-22T10:39:15","date_gmt":"2006-06-22T16:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/hands-in-the-cookie-jar\/"},"modified":"2006-06-22T10:39:15","modified_gmt":"2006-06-22T16:39:15","slug":"hands-in-the-cookie-jar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/hands-in-the-cookie-jar\/","title":{"rendered":"Hands In The Cookie Jar"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2006\/06\/21\/AR2006062102210.html?referrer=email\">Lawmakers&#8217; Profits Are Scrutinized<\/a> By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer<\/p>\n<p><strong class=\"highlight\">House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made <em>a $2 million profit<\/em> last year on the sale of land 5 1\/2 miles from a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A Republican House member from California, meanwhile, received nearly <em class=\"highlight\">double what he paid<\/em> for a four-acre parcel near an Air Force base after securing $8 million for a planned freeway interchange 16 miles away. And another California GOP congressman obtained funding in last year&#8217;s highway bill for street improvements near a planned residential and commercial development that he co-owns. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>[F]or watchdog groups, the cases have opened a fresh avenue for investigation and a new wrinkle in the ongoing controversy over earmarks &#8212; home-district projects funded through narrowly written legislative language. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The sound bites from politicians have always been that they&#8217;re doing what&#8217;s best for their districts, but we&#8217;re starting to see a pattern that looks like <strong class=\"highlight\">they might be doing what&#8217;s best for their pocketbooks<\/strong>,&#8221; said Keith Ashdown, vice president of the group Taxpayers for Common Sense. &#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The facts are the facts,&#8221; he said, &#8220;and the facts are, [Hastert] made a lot of money off this deal, and he was the one who got this earmark.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Lawmakers&#8217; Profits Are Scrutinized By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a $2 million profit last year on the sale of land 5 1\/2 miles from a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds. A Republican House member from California, meanwhile, received nearly double &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/nada\/dump-duhbya\/hands-in-the-cookie-jar\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Hands In The Cookie Jar<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dump-duhbya"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}