Flashback: Pelosi on the possibility of pork in the stimulus bill
Watch as she raises her hand and pledges that there will be no pork in the House stimulus bill. That was then:
BLITZER: In this nearly trillion dollar legislation that you’re talking about right now, can you assure the American people that there will be no pork barrel spending, none of these earmarks, these bridges to nowhere, these phony deals that are going on, that legislators won’t be able to bury stuff for their districts, the stuff that has been so highly publicized?
PELOSI: I can pledge to you that no earmark or any of that, any description you want to make of it will be in the bill that passes the House.
BLITZER: Flat.
PELOSI: Absolutely flat out.
And then two weeks later, she defends it. This is now:
During my [George Stephanopoulos’] exclusive interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, I asked her about some of the more controversial spending in the stimulus package, including hundreds of millions to expand family planning services, and $600 million in coupons to help people to convert to digital television.
“The family planning services reduce cost,” Pelosi said, “One of the elements of this package is assistance to the states. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those – one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.”
“So no apologies for that?” I asked her.
“No apologies. No,” Pelosi said. “And this is a, to stimulate the economy, is an economic recovery package and as we put it forth we have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy. Food stamps, unemployment insurance, some of the initiatives you just mentioned. Believe it or not, they’re the right thing to do but they also stimulate the economy.”
Any questions?