Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) went way off-message on Tuesday, threatening to “tie the Senate in knots” and hold up administration nominees unless lawmakers reverse just $50,000 in cuts affecting his home state that he claims would cost thousands of jobs.
Tea Party Patriots co-founder Mark Meckler is not happy with Graham’s sudden burst of pro-spending zeal, telling TPM that the senator “sounds like a petulant child.”
“If it’s that important to his state, perhaps Senator Graham ought to pay the $50K out of his own pocket,” he wrote in an e-mail to TPM. “Or perhaps the citizens of his own state would like to volunteer to fund it. Or perhaps the companies who would benefit from the deepening of the port might want to fund it.”
Graham claims that the $50,000, which goes towards an Army Corps of Engineers study on deepening the port in Charleston to allow larger ships, is crucial to the state’s economy. Meckler told TPM that the merits of the project weren’t the issue so much as Graham’s tone and embrace of public spending.
“While helping Charleston to become a competitive deep-water port may be an important project, Graham sounds like a petulant child intent on screaming loud enough to get his way,” he said. “I’m certain he could find alternatives to this. Heck, if he were willing to cut just one staffer from his personal office he could probably cover the cost of this project!”
Benjy Sarlin
Benjy Sarlin is a reporter for Talking Points Memo and co-writes the campaign blog, TPM2012. He previously reported for The Daily Beast/Newsweek as their Washington Correspondent and covered local politics for the New York Sun.
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