Jun
25
Vern McKinley Announces Bid To Unseat Frank Wolf
Filed Under Frank Wolf, Press Release | Leave a Comment
Contact: Lisa Bell
703-470-5042
ASHBURN, VA—Vern McKinley today announced his bid to become the 2008 Republican Party nominee in northern Virginia’s Tenth Congressional District. The district extends from the suburbs of Washington, DC west to the West Virginia border and is currently represented by Republican Congressman Frank Wolf. The campaign will center upon McKinley’s experience working for the U.S. and foreign governments and his policy work for free market think tanks, with an emphasis on a return to a Reagan-era focus on limited government and reduced spending.
McKinley cites Congressman Wolf’s defense of the wasteful practice of earmarking and the dramatic drop in his National Taxpayers Union rating over the past decade, which has plummeted from 80 (B) to 45 (C-), as evidence of his abandonment of responsible fiscal principles. In addition, McKinley will contrast his views with the incumbent’s positions on entitlement spending, the role of the federal government and nation building and diplomatic principles.
Vern McKinley has a vast array of experience both in the public and private sector. During the 1980s and 1990s his work experience was concentrated in a variety of management and staff positions for financial sector agencies within the federal government, including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) and the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Thrift Supervision. While at the RTC, McKinley attended the George Washington University School of Law’s evening program, graduating with honors in 1995. During these years he was also involved in independent policy analysis with the Cato Institute and the American Enterprise Institute.
Over the past eight years he has worked as a legal and policy advisor on financial and fiscal matters to domestic and foreign governments, including in the U.S., China, Nigeria, the Philippines, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Kenya, the Sudan, Libya, Armenia, Yugoslavia (now Montenegro), Serbia, Kosovo and Tajikistan. McKinley is also actively involved with The Fund for American Studies, an educational organization based in Washington, DC that educates young leaders worldwide on the values of freedom, democracy and free-market economies.
“I have great concerns with the direction Congressman Wolf has gone in since he signed the Contract with America in 1994,” McKinley said. “In recent years, Congressman Wolf has gone off the deep end, especially on issues like spending and the role of the federal government. Time after time he has voted for one big government solution after another, including many of the recent initiatives of Speaker Pelosi,” McKinley noted. “I am running to provide a limited government choice for Republicans in the Tenth district,” he added.
Vern McKinley lives in Ashburn, Virginia with his wife Nona, son Ruben and daughter Catherine. Vern and Nona met in Yerevan, Armenia where Vern was advising the Central Bank of Armenia. He first moved to the Tenth District of Virginia in 1988.
To learn more about the McKinley for Congress campaign, please visit www.McKinleyforCongress.com.
Jun
25
Contact: Lisa Bell
703-470-5042
Ashburn, VA—President Bush in his 2007 State of the Union Address called for an end to earmarking An earmark is funding for a project that is not requested by the President and is essentially a special interest add-on that an individual member of Congress requests. Citizens Against Government Waste, an organization which strives to eliminate waste, mismanagement, and inefficiency in the federal government, has a better name for earmarks: Pork. The earmark process often lacks transparency and is done secretively. To shed some light on this secretive process, President Bush directed the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to provide detail on nearly 15,000 earmarks costing tens of billions of dollars for fiscal year 2005.
As a follow-up to the publication of these 15,000 earmarks by OMB, challenger Vern McKinley contacted Congressman Wolf’s office regarding the 51 earmarks in his Tenth District (VA) that totaled $54 million. McKinley requested some very basic information from the Congressman on these earmarks, including which of the 51 earmarks his office was involved with, what the justification was for that involvement, whether the Congressman applied any consistent policies to earmarks and finally whether these policies address the case of accepting campaign contributions from companies or related entities within the district that also receive earmarks.
Of particular interest to McKinley were two instances where the recipients of two $3 million earmarks during 2005, Science Applications International Corporation and Northrop Grumman, were also two of the largest campaign contributors to Wolf through the companies’ PACs or through other means (www.opensecrets.org).
Instead of addressing McKinley’s straightforward questions, Congressman Wolf noted that he does “support reform and transparency across the board in identifying how taxpayer dollars are spent” which “includes publication of requested earmarks by sponsor in all legislation which comes to the House for a vote and from every committee.” However, Congressman Wolf was one of only 24 Republicans who voted against a rule just last year requiring that all members identify the particular pork-barrel spending earmarks they are requesting (House Vote 449).
Congressman Wolf’s response is clear: The earmarks he requested are a secret and they will remain a secret. “Congressman Wolf is very selective in his disclosure of earmarks. If he sees some political benefit to disclosure he releases the information, but if he wants to keep the details to himself he will do so. Throughout this campaign, I will continue to press Congressman Wolf, not only on the issue of earmarking, but also on the broader issues of government spending and the proper role and size of the federal government,” McKinley concluded.
To learn more about the McKinley for Congress campaign, please visit www.McKinleyforCongress.com.
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