Posted on 03/10/2010 10:49:09 AM PST by jazusamo
The powerful House Appropriations Committee announced Wednesday it will no longer approve earmarks directed at for-profit companies.
Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) and newly appointed defense appropriations subcommittee Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) made their ruling less than an hour after House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) asked that House Republicans meet to take up a unilateral moratorium on earmark spending.
A number of Democrats and Republicans have undertaken efforts to rein in so-called "pork barrel" spending in recent days, sparking a battle between the parties over who can best reform the earmark process.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has lobbied members of her party in recent days to impose a moratorium on earmarks in order to get out in front of Republicans on the issue.
Republicans discussed enacting a ban in the last Congress, but a vote never materialized.
That the Appropriations Committee decided to bar for-profit earmarks signals that Democrats are looking to make a splash with their effort.
Dicks' successor atop the defense appropriations subcommittee, the late Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), was known for handing out millions of dollars in earmarks to defense contractors to create projects in his district. Murtha's propensity to dole out cash for his district sparked several probes by the ethics committee and federal prosecutors.
Government watchdogs have for years decried the use of earmarks, saying that they are wasteful and cause corruption.
Several lawmakers have pushed for reform for several years, but spending has ballooned under both Republican and Democratic Congresses.
Obey and Dicks claim that 1,000 earmark requests would have been turned down last year if the rule was in place on their panel.
In a release, the two Democrats also touted earmark reforms enacted by Democrats in 2007 and 2009 related to earmark disclosure.
But earmark disclosure reforms pushed by the Obama administration has not reduced the amount of spending, according to a recent report by Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Two Republicans have taken up the issue in addition to Boehner.
Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) has indicated he will force a vote on a one-year moratorium on earmarks when the Senate takes up its extenders bill, which is expected to happen Wednesday.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is planning to offer a privileged resolution on the House floor requesting better guidance from the ethics committee on taking campaign contributions from companies that accepting
Ping!
However bad pork barrel projects are they are at least voted on.
Earmarks are added after all votes have been made. All of them, whether to for-profit or non-profit companies, should be treated as criminal acts of theft.
Agreed, but this is a start if they’ll hold to it which is doubtful. It’s telling that Murtha’s hardly been buried and the Dems come off with this.
I applaud this step. However, all earmarks should be outlawed. If they are too cowardly to go that far, then restrict all earmarks to some small dollar amount.
Yeah, but don’t forget all the non-profit earmarks the Dems gave out to ACORN etc.
Yes, most of the non-profit earmarks are scams. Some Reps have helped groups set up non-profits so they could supposedly create jobs in their district and fund them with earmarks, I won’t mention names.
Yep, limiting earmarks to just non-profits doesn’t seem like much of a restriction on the Dems to me.
Well, it’s pretty window dressing, but even this feeble measure would make Murtha’s head explode! LOL!
Each congressman gets one earmark for each ear he is willing to have hacked off.
That's a lifetime limit of two earmarks per scoundrel.
They don't listen to us anyway so it wouldn't be much of a loss to them.
Baby/bathwather, my friends.
MRAP, uparmored humvees, Predator, V-22, the missions and force structure of the modern day Marine Corps (via 82nd Congress) -- all the result of earmarks.
Earmarks can go both ways. Which of us would not applaud an earmark that rescinds some of the glot of money that funds so-called climate research?
If you like the budget the president came up with, believe it to have been built with only the people's best interest in mind, and want the Congress to rubber stamp it...and don't mind giving up the power of the purse, one of the primary checks and balances, then this is what you want.
I think it's a rather bad idea.
LOL!
Exactly...This wouldn’t have happened had Murtha still been chairman, it would cut deep into his earmarks for defense contractors.
Love it! lol
Always have to pound on the leftist "profit is evil" mantra.
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