House Republicans Claim Victory in Earmark Battle With Democrats

Fox News ^

[Sub-Driver]

House Republicans Claim Victory in Earmark Battle With Democrats

Thursday , June 14, 2007

WASHINGTON — Republicans claimed victory Thursday in a battle to force Democrats to abandon plans to bypass early disclosures on thousands of requests made by lawmakers for pet projects.

The fight over those pet projects — or earmarks — for two days held up a budget bill that would fund the Homeland Security Department. Republican leaders then announced an agreement that would allow floor debates on earmarks.

House Minority Leader John Boehner praised the agreement reached between Republicans and Democrats to bring an “end to secret slush funds for earmarks.”

“I think we’ve won this round,” Boehner said.

Republicans said the agreement will restore GOP reforms for appropriations bill to allow debate on the House floor. The agreement also calls for the public disclosure of sponsors of pet projects and bans funding secret earmarks in appropriations bills.

Republicans said that without the changes, they would have had the votes to sustain a presidential veto of appropriations bills.

“The truth is that our Congress declared war on a secret slush fund for spending, and we won,” said Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo. “This is a big win for taxpayers, it’s a big win for the media, frankly, it’s a big win for Republicans.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said earlier on Thursday that she was optimistic that Republicans will "end their delaying tactics" to reach a deal.

[Ben Hecks]

Here’s a good article written by Rep. Blunt regarding the Democrat earmark plan:

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=21106

[jonno]

Uh...I guess thats good news.

Any word on actually cutting the earmarks from the budget (now that we'll know about them?

[RC2]

Earmarks should be banned all together. If they want to pass a bill to fund any project, it should stand on its own so the people know what is going on. To bury it in another bill is wrong.