This is a big deal.  Remember, this is Rhode Island.

Coaty defeated Cicilline 872 to 511, with 53 mail ballots still to be counted, in the race in Newport’s District 75, according to preliminary results from Newport’s Board of Canvassers

While long-time Newporter Cicilline supported expanding the sales tax to more goods and cautioned against cuts that would harm the disadvantaged, newcomer Coaty emphasized that he would seek to cut state spending and would not raise any taxes.

“We got our message out. People in the city of Newport are very concerned about the state of the fiscal crisis that we are facing,” he said, adding that residents “are sick and tired of one-party rule.”

The Providence Journal

I hope he’s right.  They’ve got their work cut out for them.

Straight from the mouth of Rep. Jim Moron (D-VA).

I just heard on the news a few minutes ago that Tom Tancredo is expected to make a big announcement tomorrow.  Is he dropping out of the Presidential race?  Could he be announcing a Senatorial run?  Or could it be both?

If you were bored enough to watch the House floor during the budget debate yesterday, you may have seen conservative lawmakers like Marsha Blackburn, Paul Ryan and Mike Pence leading the crusade against the earmark-laden omnibus spending bill.

But even these fiscal hawks, all members of the conservative Republican Study Committee, haven’t totally sworn off earmarks and don’t plan to.

Blackburn, of Tennessee, has attached her name to a $784,000 earmark for Appalachian horticulture research for the University of Tennessee. Pence, of Indiana, a former chairman of the RSC, nabbed $400,000 for public transit for Anderson, Ind. And Ryan of Wisconsin, one of a handful of 30-something up and comers in the GOP conference, will send home $750,000 for the Janesville, Wis., city transit system. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), an RSC member who has developed a reputation as a conservative rabble rouser on the House floor, was co-sponsor of a $1.5 million earmark for the Statesville Regional Airport improvements.

To his credit, a search for the name of RSC Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), turns up no earmarks. And Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), along with Majority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), also will go without any earmarks in this year’s omnibus. Conservatives as a whole receive fewer earmarks, according to this chart.

The Politico

I just thought those were some interesting facts.  Senator DeMint of my state has also requested no earmarks this year, while Lindsay Graham, the other Senator we try to forget about, has had his hands deep in the trough.

The House’s 272-142 vote also sent the president a $555 billion catchall spending bill that combines the war money with money for 14 Cabinet departments. War spending aside, Bush’s GOP allies were divided over whether the overall spending bill was a victory for their party in the monthslong fight with Democrats over agency budgets.Conservatives and outside groups such as the Club for Growth, which seeks to elect lawmakers opposed to tax and spending increases, criticized the bill for having about $28 billion in domestic spending that topped Bush’s budget and was paid for by a combination of “emergency” spending, transfers from the defense budget and other maneuvers.Republican leaders acknowledged some excesses. But they said the measure could have cost a lot more if the GOP and the White House not stood firm against more than $20 billion in additional domestic spending included in Democratic spending bills that passed last summer.

“The fact is we got the number down to the baseline,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.

My Way News

As if that makes me feel any better. This bill had 11,144 earmarks in it and I heard on the news this evening that several of the earmarks didn’t even indicate what they were for. They pointed out an example of a $1 million earmark for Detroit with no stated purpose on what the money is going to be spent on. Furthermore, they didn’t have the final version of the bill, with dozens of added earmarks to it, even 24 hours before they voted on it. How can 272 House members and 76 Senators vote for a bill for over half a trillion dollars that they haven’t even read?

14 Republican Senators voted against this.

Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Hagel (R-NE)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Voinovich (R-OH)

Senator DeMint has the full list of earmarks at his Web site.  FYI, it takes a while to load.