It's Time For Both Parties to Put End to Earmark Spending
Last year, incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi vowed Democrats would "bring transparency and openness to the budget process and to the use of earmarks."
Now, it seems congressional Democrats' professed commitment to fiscal responsibility had the life expectancy of a firefly.
Democrats and Republicans are battling each other over pork-barrel spending, better known as "earmarks." An earmark is where a member of Congress secures federal money for their home district, "bringing home the bacon."
In the House, these provisions are not debated on the floor. Instead they are anonymously inserted in committee reports before final passage. The spending is then voted into law without public scrutiny. The current earmark system is a disgrace and an invitation to corruption.
Both parties have an embarrassing history with earmarks. President Reagan vetoed a highway spending bill because it had over 100 earmarks in it. Two years ago, the highway bill included more than 6,000.
The American people have had it with earmarks. Polls show that one of the reasons driving Congress's near record-low poll numbers is their out-of-control spending.
This outrage is one of the reasons Republicans lost power. Polls show that along with Iraq and corruption, a major reason for GOP losses in 2006 was wasteful spending. And frankly, some Republicans deserved it.
This has nothing to do with legitimate government spending that happens to take place in one particular district. Federal funding is needed for some things, and that's why Congress has constitutional spending power. But all earmarks should be publicly disclosed and debated in Congress, so that necessary spending goes forward but wasteful spending is stopped.
The GOP has learned this painful lesson, shown by House Republicans electing John Boehner (R-West Chester) as their leader. Boehner has never asked for an earmark. His team is working with conservative stalwarts like Mike Pence of Indiana and the Republican Study Committee to end the process of earmarking as we know it.
Feeling the heat last year, Republicans finally passed a reform requiring all earmarks to be identified by their sponsor and open to debate and a vote on the House floor. It proved too little and too late.
Democrats used the GOP's spending binges as a campaign issue to take power in Congress. But now that Democrats control both chambers, they've suddenly lost all interest in stopping pork-barrel spending.
Boehner will mobilize the House GOP for an all-out fight on this issue.
And of course a president has the ultimate solution to the earmark problem: He can veto a spending bill, and tell Congress he'll sign it only when the wasteful spending is gone. Congress would get the message after a few vetoes.
Wasteful spending has been a campaign cliché for too long. It's now time for action, not rhetoric. It's time for those promising reform to deliver.
If the Democrats don't reverse course, their congressional reign will be short and their nominee will fail. And if the GOP proves it's serious about fixing our nation's spending problems, they will be back on track to regaining the voters' trust.
Ken Blackwell is the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow for Public Policy at the Buckeye Institute in Columbus, Ohio and a Senior Fellow at the Family Research Council in Washington, DC. He is a columnist for the New York Sun, a contributing editor and columnist for the conservative news and opinion site Townhall.com, and a public affairs commentator for the Salem Radio Network.
