Sneedling on Kirk
Sneed is told U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk is heading to the top of the GOP list of emerging future leaders.
*To wit: “Kirk is highly respected by the senior leaders of the National Republican Congressional Committee — and is being eyed as a candidate to run against U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin down the road,” said a top D.C. source
If he didn’t think he’d have a conservative posse running against him in the primary. He’d have to have the field cleared for him, and that isn’t going to happen since he’s pro-choice.
April 1st, 2005 at
How do others feel about Kirk?
I really dislike him.
He pitched himself as being like John Porter, but he’s not. Porter was an independent that broke with the GOP on a number of foreign policy, military and security issues. Other than a couple choice social hot button issues, Kirk is a GOP loyalist with little to no independence.
I attended a debate between the GOP candidates in the primary Kirk won. He raised the issue of military members on food stamps.
I talked to Kirk about this afterward. I explained that this was rare and deceiving since the military members on food stamps don’t have their housing allowance counted toward their income to determine eligibility.
It’s a big difference if you’re eligible for food stamps b/c you only make $1,700 per month if your housing and medical care are free or not. Kirk was completely dismissive of this point.
Kirk also claimed to know servicemembers that were food stamp eligible from his time in the service. I don’t know who he does and doesn’t know, but I suspect he was lying.
I served longer on active duty than Kirk and never met a single member that was eligible for food stamps. Now, I was stationed overseas and at commands that were unlikely to have somebody exceedingly junior with a large family.
So there are reasons I wouldn’t have met somebody like this. But, where did Kirk serve? Kirk was an intel officer in the Balkans in the ’90s. I can virtually guarantee that within Kirk’s command there was nobody foodstamp eligible. Enlisted intel personnel percolate up to E-4 before deploying. And an E-4 had to have at least four and maybe five or six dependents to be food stamp eligible.
Now, Kirk could have met someone foodstamp eligible who was attached to another command, but I’m skeptical.
Finally, I don’t think Kirk hasn’t done anything about low pay for junior enlisted since being elected. The Pentagon targets pay raises at mid-career servicemembers. They are the ones likely to leave the service. First-term enlisted members and officers are obligated to stay in, so there’s no market pressure to raise their pay. Senior enlisted and officers are either close to retirement and therefore not going to quit or they’ve made a lifestyle decision to stay past 20 years.
So, if Kirk really wanted to reduce the number of enlisted members that were food stamp eligible, he’d have offered amendments to shift the money from the 10% pay raises to mid-career people to the junior enlisted members. But as far as I know the GOP leadership has largely approved the pay charts sent to Congress by the DOD.
May 6th, 2006 at
He is not running against Durbin. Durbin’s staff called him the last time this rumor came and Kirk said no way.