November 24, 2004
No Shrimp Left Behind
Congress is spending its lame-duck session trying to pass the remainder of its funding bills before heading home for the holidays. In order to spread some Christmas cheer, lawmakers have stuffed the budgetary goose with plenty of pork, including a measure that Senator John McCain dubbed the No Shrimp Left Behind Act: The spending plan awaiting President Bush's signature is packed with them, doling out $4 million for an Alabama fertilizer development center, $1 million each for a Norwegian American Foundation in Seattle and a "Wild American Shrimp Initiative," and more, much more. Despite soaring deficits, lawmakers from both parties who approved the $388 billion package last weekend set plenty of money aside for home-district projects like these, knowing they sow goodwill among special interests and voters. They also raised the ire of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a pork-barrel critic who took to the Senate floor to ask whether shrimp...
September 28, 2005
Not One Dime For Porkers: A Convergence
I have been watching the Porkbusters campaign championed by Instapundit, NZ Bear, Michelle Malkin, and others with a wistful sense of admiration and regret. Normally I would love to dive into the federal budget and find the pork, but due to work obligations, family issues, and other investigations I'm pursuing at the moment on the blog, I simply don't have the time. Those who have worked hard to make this effort have done a tremendous job in identifying billions of dollars in federal spending on foolishness and waste. My good friend Mark Tapscott of the Heritage Foundation called me today and asked me why I had not yet blogged about Porkbusters. I told him that without having much to contribute that I didn't want to distract from the effort made by other bloggers. He suggested that I could assist the program by expanding the Not One Dime More effort to...
September 30, 2005
Pork -- It's What Eats Your Lunch
One of the benefits of the Not One Dime For Porkers campaign applies to the politicians and not to the electorate whose money disappears into these waste-laden programs. Sometimes, when politicians dig into half-baked pork, they find it quite damaging to their political health. Take Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, for example. After making arrangements for a series of federal grants to a Nevada church, Reid now may suffer a bit of indigestion from the fraudulent use of the money: The money that led to the indictment this week of two Las Vegas pastors and the wife of one of them came from federal grants arranged by Sen. Harry Reid in September 2001, a Reid spokeswoman said Wednesday. Moving to distance Reid from a possible scandal, aide Tessa Hafen said the senator sought the money on behalf of a nonprofit social services agency and not for the churches or persons...
October 17, 2005
Conservative Ire May Provoke Spending Cuts
In a development that will certainly please conservatives who look at the growth in federal government and wonder which party has won the past few elections, the House has begun to turn towards budget reductions and the reduction in federal growth that has long been the GOP standard. In fact, Operation Offset, launched by Rep. Mike Pence, has stirred interest largely due to Tom DeLay's contention that no further fat could be found in a federal budget that eats up a higher percentage of the nation's GDP than it ever did during WWII: Beginning this week, the House GOP lawmakers will take steps to cut as much as $50 billion from the fiscal 2006 budget for health care for the poor, food stamps and farm supports, as well as considering across-the-board cuts in other programs. Only last month, then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.) and other GOP leaders quashed demands...
October 24, 2005
A Moment Of Clarity
Fifteen votes out of a hundred. I haven't written much about the failure of the Coburn Amendment until today, although it has been the topic of some excellent writing in the blogosphere. Start with Mark Tapscott and work your way outward. The only demand that Tom Coburn made of his fellow Senators was to redirect a couple of pork projects from a list of 14,000 towards the rebuilding of New Orleans, rather than go out and look for new revenues -- in other words, new taxes. What happened when Coburn asked this sacrifice of the Upper Chamber? Hissy fits and threats. As John at Power Line remarked to me in a conversation, whenever Patty Murray and Ted Stevens find themselves on the same side of an issue, the only thing that it can be about is money. Murray stood up and threatened any Senator who dared to vote to kill...
November 3, 2005
Secret Code In Budget Deficit Foretells Alien Invasion!
The irony proved too delicious to pass unnoticed. The National Press Foundation agreed to host a joint seminar on media coverage of the budget crisis, sponsored and initiated by the Heritage Foundation and the Brookings Institution in order to promote wider and more in-depth coverage of the expanding monetary gap. Journalists, policymakers, and one lowly blogger (yours truly) came as guests and speakers to discuss the causes of the budget crisis and why the media has so much trouble engaging public attention on it. However, when attendees and presenters alike arrived at the National Press Club, they found a separate event scheduled as a special luncheon, square in the middle of the budget-crisis seminar. Ambassador Joe Wilson would make an appearance and give a talk about his exploits in Niger and as a gadfly to the Bush administration. We received a first-hand practical lesson on attention spans when some of...
December 22, 2005
How Do We Solve Pork For Good?
The failure of the ANWR strategy of amending arctic drilling to the defense budget, even as other spending amendments remain attached to the Pentagon funding, has Jon Henke at QandO thinking about how best to fight pork and get more honest votes on all federal funding. Jon, who runs one of the best neoliberatarian sites along with co-bloggers Dale Franks and McQ, wants to return to line-item budgeting: The Parties have each failed to coordinate their principles on legislating-via-budget because they don't actually have any principles on legislating-via-budget. Their position on the process is entirely dependent upon the outcome. They have no Original Position. While calculations of power and interest might lead one to conclude that this process-pervesion will ultimately be productive, this is not a promising way to organize government. The tables will turn, the majority will be the minority and the precedent will have been set. Republicans often...
January 28, 2006
The WSJ Almost Gets It Right
The latest Wall Street Journal editorial on pork once again sounds all the right alarms in dealing with the profligate spending in Washington and the ensuing corruption that it brings. It starts off by scoffing at an earmarked subsidy from the US Navy on a "waterless urinal" -- we used to call those pipes, by the way, and they didn't cost two million dollars -- and goes on to urge an end to all earmarks and a line-item veto: Now for the good news. Amid the humiliating publicity about the bridge to nowhere in Alaska, maple syrup research in Vermont and blueberry subsidies in Massachusetts, nearly everyone in Congress is suddenly swearing off pork. All three Republicans running for House Majority Leader have pledged to end the abuse of "earmarks." And so has Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, though she too has used her political clout to steer millions of dollars...
February 2, 2006
Republicans Finally Take On Entitlement Reform
The GOP took a step forward on tackling entitlement spending, narrowly squeaking out a victory in the House yesterday on a $40-billion cut to Medicare and other federal programs. It represents the first effort in almost a decade to reform programs that threaten to grow unchecked until they gobble up almost the entire federal budget: House Republicans eked out a victory on a $39.5 billion budget-cutting package on Wednesday, with a handful of skittish Republicans switching their votes at the last minute in opposition to reductions in spending on health and education programs. ... The measure represents the first major effort by lawmakers since 1997 to cut the growth of so-called entitlement programs, including student loans, crop subsidies and Medicaid, in which spending is determined by eligibility criteria. It passed 216 to 214, with 13 Republicans voting against. The Senate, with Vice President Dick Cheney casting the decisive vote, approved...
February 7, 2006
Might As Well Face It, We're Addicted To Dole
The Heritage Foundation has released a report that shows the federal budget in crisis, and pork only tells part of the story. Titled Federal Spending - By The Numbers, the Brian Riedl report gives an easily-accessible look at the growth in federal spending during the Bush administration that should sober any drunken Congressman right up. It also demonstrates without a doubt that the tax cuts enacted by Bush have nothing to do with this crisis. Tax revenues, in fact, have steadily increased during the tax cut period, and overall have more than doubled since 1990. In 2000, the last full year of Bill Clinton's term, tax receipts came to $2.025T. They dipped in 2001 and 2002 with the recession, dropping to a low of $1.783T in 2003, when the tax cuts got implemented. They have jumped in the last two years, to $1.88T and $2.154T, the last a 14% increase...
March 19, 2006
All (Corruption) In The Family
The San Diego Union-Tribune continues its reporting on the bribery scandal that finally derailed -- and jailed -- Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham for corruption. The testimony from Cunningham that he had plenty of company for his malfeasances has led U-T reporter Dean Calbreath to dig deeper, and he has found more evidence of lobbying money ending up in the personal accounts of a lawmaker: A week before former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham was sentenced to prison, he stressed to the court that a number of other lawmakers also helped arrange federal funding for the defense contractors who bribed him. None of the lawmakers Cunningham mentioned by name – Reps. Katherine Harris of Florida, Virgil Goode of Virginia and John Doolittle from the Sacramento suburb of Granite Bay – has been accused of criminal wrongdoing. But each has admitted assisting either Mitchell Wade or Brent Wilkes, co-conspirators in the Cunningham case,...
March 29, 2006
Trent's Tone-Deaf MYOB On Pork
Mark Tapscott has the skinny on how Senator Trent Lott decided to keep pork in the dark. Lott scuttled an amendment by Tom Coburn and Barrack Obama that would have created a public database of pork projects so that taxpayers could see where Congress spends their money. Lott, apparently, decided that government spending is none of the taxpayers' business and has nothing to do with lobbying reform. Really? Sen. Trent Lott, R-MS, raised a Rule 22 Point of Order which resulted in the Coburn/Obama amendment being killed. ... The Senate's Rule 22 refers to the germaneness - i.e. relevance - of a proposed amendment. Translated from the Washington legislatese in which senators and congressmen so often hide, this means Lott thinks making sure the public can see who is getting more than $300 billion of their tax dollars has nothing to do with congressional ethics. Put another way, Lott just...
April 5, 2006
Lott 'Damn Tired' Of Taxpayers Who Check Up On Congress
Mark Tapscott continues his excellent watchdog duties as he prepares to leave the Heritage Foundation for greener pastures at the Examiner newspaper chain (coming to a town near you, and soon). Mark posts the latest hostile reaction to Porkbusters by the former Senate Majority Leader, Trent Lott: Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, the Republican from Mississippi, has had it to here with Porkbusters and other critics of pork barrel spending like Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK, who think the federal government has better things to do with $700 million of the taxpayers money than tear up a just-repaired coastal rail line and replace it with a new highway. Said Lott when asked by an AP reporter about criticism of the project he has long championed and which was just funded in a Senate Appropriations Committee bill to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as additional Hurricane...
May 3, 2006
A Step Back For Porkbusters
The effort to put an end to earmarks -- the technical term for pork-barrel projects in the federal budget -- hit a snag yesterday when the US Senate voted to keep such unrelated projects out of emergency spending legislation on hurricane relief and the Iraq war effort. In a related development, Robert Byrd vehemently opposed a modified versions of the line-item veto that he supported during the Clinton administration: The Senate voted Tuesday to protect home-state projects added by some of its most senior members to an Iraq war and hurricane relief funding bill as the tide turned against efforts by spending hawks to strip them out. ... The price tag of the bill, therefore, has grown to more than $108 billion, despite Bush's promise to veto any measure that exceeds his request of $92.2 billion for the war and hurricane relief and another $2.3 billion to combat avian flu....
May 4, 2006
Tapscott: Both Parties Pick Porkers For Conference Committee
Mark Tapscott notes in two posts that both Republicans and Democrats named chronic pork supporters to the conference committee reconciling the emergency spending legislation from both chambers of Congress: THE PRESIDING OFFICER: UNDER THE PREVIOUS ORDER, THE CHAIR APPOINTS THE FOLLOWING AS CONFEREES ON THE PART OF THE SENATE. THE CLERK: SENATORS COCHRAN, STEVENS, SPECTER, DOMENICI, BOND, McCONNELL, BURNS, SHELBY, GREGG, BENNETT, CRAIG, HUTCHISON, DeWINE, BROWNBACK, ALLARD, BYRD, INOUYE, LEAHY, HARKIN, MIKULSKI, REID, KOHL, MURRAY, DORGAN, FEINSTEIN, DURBIN, JOHNSON, AND LANDRIEU. Mark calls this a Porkers Hall of Fame, and then provides the data to back it up. It turns out that this group has individually voted to retain pork almost three times as often as they have voted for its elimination. Denny Hastert has declared the Senate version a dead letter in the House, balking at the $17 billion in increased spending it delivers, but he may wind up...
May 8, 2006
Examiner: Time To Veto
The Washington Examiner exhorts George Bush to take an unprecedented step for this administration and veto any emergency spending plan that includes $20 billion in pork. The editorial argues that the White House must establish its authority in spending now or lose it for the rest of the term: President Bush has frequently portrayed many of his most controversial actions as necessary to protect executive branch prerogatives against usurpations of power by Congress. So it is especially curious that Bush has yet to use the most potent weapon the Founders gave occupants of the Oval Office against Congress: the veto. If Bush is truly serious about protecting the powers and prerogatives of his office, he will set aside his veto reservations and slam-dunk the emergency funding bill if it comes to his desk in anything remotely resembling the form in which the Senate passed it last week. Bush originally asked...
May 17, 2006
Term Limits For Appropriators?
The New York Sun reports on a new initiative by tax activist Grover Norquist to rein in spending -- rule changes in both the House and Senate that limit the tenure on appropriations committees. Norquist wants to have more fresh faces each session in order to combat the descent of otherwise rational politicians into a spendthrift groupthink: Grover Norquist, president of the advocacy group Americans for Tax Reform, is advancing a new approach to fighting government corruption: term limits for members of congressional appropriations committees. Speaking to The New York Sun yesterday, Mr. Norquist claimed that members of appropriations committees developed a sort of groupthink over time, and regardless of their partisan affiliations, eventually began thinking like appropriators. ... Mr. Norquist has recently traveled with Rep. Tom Feeney, a Republican of Florida, who supports the idea and will help introduce it into the House. "We'll do it after the next...
May 24, 2006
Earmarks Take Relief From The Needy
Don't say we didn't sound the alarm early on pork-barrel politics and their destructive potential to GOP midterm hopes. The Washington Post has an article that shows how victims of Hurricane Katrina remain homeless while the Republicans in the Senate pork up the emergency relief bill with hundreds of millions of dollars for their corporate pals: BILOXI, Miss. -- This city's east side remains largely abandoned, a bleak panorama of empty lots and abandoned homes left behind by the tradesmen, shrimpers and casino workers who once lived here. Hundreds had little or no insurance. For people such as 83-year-old Elzora Brown, a retired dry-cleaning presser whose little frame house was waterlogged up to the eaves, there's not enough federal disaster aid for repairs. "Whatever the Lord sees fit, that's what I'll have," she said. Just down the coast in Pascagoula, defense contractor Northrop Grumman Corp. similarly didn't have enough insurance...
May 31, 2006
Give Us The Pork Database
The Washington Examiner today endorses a Senate bill that would require the government to create a public database that would allow taxpayers to access data for all federal expenditures (except for indivdual assistance). Tom Coburn, a noted pork hawk, authored the bill and has a bipartisan group of co-sponsors which include Barack Obama and John McCain: Abraham Lincoln said, “Let the people know the facts and all will be safe,” so the Great Emancipator would certainly cheer an unlikely group of United States senators who have recently joined forces to push a potentially landmark measure. That measure is designed to put every American citizen within a few mouse clicks of knowing the facts needed to track federal spending as never before. This measure should receive top-priority attention in Congress and be signed by President Bush at the earliest possible opportunity. The proposal is known as the Federal Funding Accountability and...
Give Us The Pork Database
The Washington Examiner today endorses a Senate bill that would require the government to create a public database that would allow taxpayers to access data for all federal expenditures (except for indivdual assistance). Tom Coburn, a noted pork hawk, authored the bill and has a bipartisan group of co-sponsors which include Barack Obama and John McCain: Abraham Lincoln said, “Let the people know the facts and all will be safe,” so the Great Emancipator would certainly cheer an unlikely group of United States senators who have recently joined forces to push a potentially landmark measure. That measure is designed to put every American citizen within a few mouse clicks of knowing the facts needed to track federal spending as never before. This measure should receive top-priority attention in Congress and be signed by President Bush at the earliest possible opportunity. The proposal is known as the Federal Funding Accountability and...
June 6, 2006
Enlist In Congress, See The World!
The Center for Public Integrity reports that lobbyists provided Congress with over $50 million in trips between January 2000 and June 2005. The amount of time spent away from the office also comes to a staggering 81,000 days: Over 5 1/2 years, Republican and Democratic lawmakers accepted nearly $50 million in trips, often to resorts and exclusive locales, from corporations and groups seeking legislative favors, according to the most comprehensive study to date on the subject of congressional travel. From January 2000 through June 2005, House and Senate members and their aides were away from Washington for more than 81,000 days -- a combined 222 years -- on at least 23,000 trips, according to the report, issued yesterday by the nonpartisan Center for Public Integrity. About 2,300 of the trips cost $5,000 or more, at least 500 cost $10,000 or more, and 16 cost $25,000 or more. "While some of...
June 9, 2006
Pork On A Diet
The conference committee on the emergency appropriations bill has reached agreement on the measure which had an original spending gap of $16 billion. The resulting bill will reach the White House at $94.5 billion, $2.5 billion more than the House-approved plan but much lighter than the heavily-porked version the Senate tried mightily to get: House and Senate negotiators reached agreement last night on a $94.5 billion package to pay for Iraq war and hurricane recovery costs, after shaving numerous extraneous provisions that the Senate had wanted to stuff into the bill. The bill, which is expected to reach President Bush's desk next week, would designate $65.8 billion to the Pentagon to cover troop pay, provide recruiting incentives, buy new body armor and fund continued operations of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, among other items. Diplomacy projects in the region would receive $3.9 billion in new funding. The bill would...
June 12, 2006
Democrat Wants To Pork You Up
Every once in a while, a politician provides a moment of utter clarity, usually inadvertently, which defines their character so well that further defense is pointless. Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA) not only did that for himself but for his entire party, and provided the Republicans with a valuable sound bite for the upcoming mid-terms in every district: If Democrats win back control of the U.S. House of Representatives in November, U.S. Rep. Jim Moran said he would use his position in the majority to help funnel more funds to his Northern Virginia district. Moran, D-8th, told those attending the Arlington County Democratic Committee's annual Jefferson-Jackson Day dinner on June 9 that while he in theory might oppose the fiscal irresponsibility of “earmarks” - funneling money to projects in a member of Congress's district - he understands the value they have to constituents. “When I become chairman [of a House appropriations...
June 13, 2006
Another Pork Protector Revealed
The Hill quotes another Congressman who believes he has a right to spend our money on whatever pork projects he can fund. At a time when serious questions arising from Appropriations chair Jerry Lewis (R-CA) have cast doubt on the credibility and integrity of the House committee, another of its members, Rep. Ray La Hood (R-IL), declared that he has had enough of the taxpayers' "crap": Appropriations members have already vowed to fight any move to strip spending from the bill. “I’m not going to take their crap,” Rep. Ray LaHood (R-Ill.) said last week. The Illinois appropriator said he included several projects for his district and would fight to keep them all. “They think they’ve gotten a little steam building, and we’re going to have to shoot them down,” LaHood said. He ripped RSC members this year on the House floor for successfully stripping $507 million in construction projects...
June 14, 2006
Line Item Veto Coming To House Floor
The House Budget Committee has returned the line-item veto to the full House on a bipartisan vote, 24-9, delivering a potentially valuable tool in the fight over earmarks. The new bill would allow the President to return line items from bills for an up-or-down vote in Congress, forcing porkers to take responsibility for their spending habits and links to benefactors: Congress is moving to give President Bush and his successors greater power to try to weed bills of certain spending, though the new power would pale compared with the line-item veto law struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998. The House Budget Committee on Wednesday approved by a 24-9 vote a bill to allow the president to single out wasteful items contained in appropriations bills he signs into law, and it would require Congress to vote on those items again. The idea is that wasteful "pork barrel" spending would...
Line Item Veto Coming To House Floor
The House Budget Committee has returned the line-item veto to the full House on a bipartisan vote, 24-9, delivering a potentially valuable tool in the fight over earmarks. The new bill would allow the President to return line items from bills for an up-or-down vote in Congress, forcing porkers to take responsibility for their spending habits and links to benefactors: Congress is moving to give President Bush and his successors greater power to try to weed bills of certain spending, though the new power would pale compared with the line-item veto law struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998. The House Budget Committee on Wednesday approved by a 24-9 vote a bill to allow the president to single out wasteful items contained in appropriations bills he signs into law, and it would require Congress to vote on those items again. The idea is that wasteful "pork barrel" spending would...
Another Confluence of Pork And Influence (Update With Hastert Response, And Reader Response)
Note: Be sure to read Dennis Hastert's response through his attorneys in the updates below, as well as more information on the transaction. The Sunlight Foundation reports that another apparently clear linkage between pork and a politician's pocket exists in the business dealings of Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL). They report that Hastert has pushed through $207 million in earmarks for a business venture financed by a trust owned in part by Hastert himself: House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert has used an Illinois trust to invest in real estate near the proposed route of the Prairie Parkway, a highway project for which he's secured $207 million in earmarked appropriations. The trust has already transferred 138 acres of land to a real estate development firm that has plans to build a 1,600-home community, located just a few miles from the north-south connector Hastert has championed in the House. Hastert's 2005 financial disclosure...
June 22, 2006
The Post Picks Up Hastert's Real-Estate Deal
The Washington Post picks up on the profit taken by Dennis Hastert and his partners in the Little Rock Trust that came from $207 million in federal highway funding, a traffic corridor championed by Hastert himself and funded through pork-barrel earmarks. Now it turns out that federal highway earmarks may have enriched two more Congressmen in a similar manner: House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) made a $2 million profit last year on the sale of land 5 1/2 miles from a highway project that he helped to finance with targeted federal funds. A Republican House member from California, meanwhile, received nearly double what he paid for a four-acre parcel near an Air Force base after securing $8 million for a planned freeway interchange 16 miles away. And another California GOP congressman obtained funding in last year's highway bill for street improvements near a planned residential and commercial development that...
Line-Item Veto Passes House
The House just passed the new limited line-item veto moments ago, 247-172, with 35 Democrats voting to support the Republican initiative on reform. Andrew Taylor at the AP notes the irony in this vote: Lawmakers voted to give Bush and his successor a new, weaker version of the line-item veto law struck down by the Supreme Court in 1998, despite a recent series of lopsided votes in which they've rallied to preserve each other's back-home projects. It would expire after six years. The idea advances amid increasing public concern about lawmakers' penchant for stuffing parochial projects into spending bills that the president must accept or reject in their entirety. ... The bill would allow the president to single out items contained in appropriations bills he signs into law, and it would require Congress to vote on those items again. It also could be used against increases in benefit programs and...
July 3, 2006
Public Openness Reaches The New York Times
The New York Times reports today on the burgeoning bipartisan demand for full disclosure on federal spending via public, searchable databases that would expose pork to the maximum public scrutiny. Jason DeParle reports that while both the Left and the Right have different motivations, both see a fully searchable database for the federal budget as a promise of more accountability in governance: Exasperated by his party's failure to cut government spending, Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, is seeking cyberhelp. Mr. Coburn wants to create a public database, searchable over the Internet, that would list most government contracts and grants — exposing hundreds of billions in annual spending to instant desktop view. ... On the right, support for the plan reflects an old concern about spending and a new faith in the power of blogs. Supporters picture a citizen army of e-watchdogs, greatly increasing the influence of antispending groups in...
July 6, 2006
The Pork Poll, Or Have You Seen Elvis Lately?
The Sunlight Foundation has a new poll for blog readers across the political spectrum. Several of us, including Instapundit and Truth Laid Bear, will post this poll ourselves and collect data from our readers. It's not meant to be scientific but rather a bit of temperature-taking, as well as a little fun for everyone. Take a moment and fill it out so we can see where CQ readers stand on the issue: Written by Micah Sifry on July 6, 2006 - 9:21am. In the wake of scandals involving lobbyists like Jack Abramoff and Congressmen like Tom DeLay (R-TX), Bob Ney (R-OH), William Jefferson (D-LA), and Alan Mollahan (D-WV), do you think Congress is doing enough to clean itself up?: Yes No I don't know Which do you think will happen first? The current leadership of Congress will push for real ethics and lobbying reforms, or Elvis will be sighted?: Congressional...
July 14, 2006
Tapscott To Testify On Pork Database
Mark Tapscott, who has worked tirelessly against pork-barrel spending at his own blog, the Heritage Foundation, and now as editorial page editor at The Examiner, will testify in the Senate on July 18th on the impact of a proposed federal spending databse on journalism. The subcommittee on Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security ... needs a name change ... but also will hear testimony on Tom Coburn's bill creating an Internet database of all federal spending, searchable and open to all: Sen. Tom Coburn will convene a hearing July 18 of the Senate's Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information and International Security to "highlight the lack of transparency in federal spending decisions, as well as the merits of legislation to create a website disclosing the recipients of all federal funding." There will be two panels, with the first consisting of senators John McCain, R-AZ, and Barack Obama, D-IL,...
July 18, 2006
Pork Database Hearing: Live Blog
I'm watching the Senate hearing on the bill that Senator Tom Coburn has pushed to get a searchable database on federal funding. I got to it a little late -- Senator John McCain just started his testimony now 1:42 CT - He's quoting from today's Washington Post about a rancher who found himself stunned to be eligible for federal relef after the space shuttle Columbia disaster -- and those funds came from a drought fund! 1:46 - McCain finishes up by noting that the only reason to refuse this database is to admit that government has something to hide. McCain has certainly taken the right approach on this, but I'm not sure that his anecdotes really get to the heart of the problem. Perhaps it is impolite to mention it, but the real reason isn't to keep ranchers from getting drought funds they don't deserve, but to keep politicians from...
July 22, 2006
Heritage Blog Arrival
I've begun posting at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog, and have two new posts there on budgetary issues. The first post reviews a paper written by Brian Riedl and Baker Spring, showing that four years after the war, Congress still appropriates for the war as if they didn't know it existed. We need to stop funding war efforts through emergency appropriations, which as we saw this session, create too many opportunities for pork-barrel mischief. The second paper I highlighted at Heritage rethinks the entire process of attacking unnecessary spending. Brian Riedl and Michelle Muccio have an inspired idea about how to gain political clout through the bundling of spending reductions, gathering enough programs to jettison so that the sum of the expenditures excites enough passion to overwhelm the natural constituencies of the programs themselves. It sounds impossible, but Riedl and Muccio show how the BRAC process did just that --...
July 24, 2006
Note To CNN: Secrecy Is The Norm
CNN had a good article last night explaining why Randy "Duke" Cunningham could deliver so much pork to his partners in corruption -- he hid earmarks in classified appropriations bills for the intelligence budget. The report made much of the secrecy involved in black-box budgeting -- but said nothing about the normal operational secrecy of earmarks in every other facet of appropriations. In my lastest post at the Heritage Foundation's Policy Blog, I point that out -- and discuss the obvious solutions. Give it a read, and let me know what you think. Addendum: Don't forget to blogroll the Policy Blog, and you can get the RSS feed here....
July 25, 2006
We Haven't Changed The Paradigm At All
I find it very helpful to read columnists from across the political spectrum, and not just to find targets for fisking; sometime one needs an outsider's perspective to see a larger truth. In this case, E.J. Dionne provides that perspective, and the larger truth is that after a generation of demanding smaller federal government, Republicans -- especially Republican incumbents -- have not succeeded in changing the political paradigm of pork-barrel politics at all: Most people outside Virginia's Hampton Roads region have never heard of Craney Island -- and neither had Webb, an anti-politician whose career has taken him from the military to the Reagan administration to writing and now back to the Democratic Party. Allen asked: "Jim, what's your position on the proper use of Craney Island?" Webb replied, candidly: "I'm not sure where Craney Island is. Why don't you tell me?" No doubt feeling very pleased, Allen replied: "Craney...
Biggest Pork Item In History?
Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) got Congress to pass his amendment to the Deep Water Energy Resources Act that had nothing to do with deep water or energy resources. Instead, HR 3496 earmarked $1.5 billion for the Washington DC Metro system, which operates above water in all senses except financially. The Heritage Foundation's Ronald Utt describes the amendment as "the biggest pork earmark in history", and it's headed for the Senate. I discuss this in my latest post at the Heritage Foundation. Most amazing, the earmark comes because the constituent cities and states involved have little interest in funding improvements to their own system -- so Davis decided to charge every man, woman, and child in America $5 to have someone else ride the bus or train in our nation's capital. Why, exactly, is this a federal problem? Davis has an explanation that will make you roll your eyes, and the...
July 28, 2006
Making the CUT (Update: Pork Database Progress!)
My new post at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog discusses a new effort by Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to give Congress the power to remove spending from an already-approved budget. King's proposal, Cut the Unnecessary Tab (CUT) resolution, would amend House rules to require a quarterly rescission bill to review all unspent federal monies. Any member could then offer an amendment to delete a particular line item, and each amendment would have to receive a recorded vote -- putting each Representative on record on the program involved. King's release describes the benefits: Everything Is On The Table • All appropriations spending is subject to review and rescission. During this spending reduction process, every single spending item would be up for reconsideration, and no Member of Congress could make excuses for failing to cut spending because the process would provide a record of their actions. All Savings Go to Deficit Reduction...
July 31, 2006
Contractors Balking At Open Government
Today's Washington Post has an article on the progress of the federal-spending database, but thanks to the Post's editors, it's buried on page D-4 of the Metro section rather than in national news. It contains an assertion that federal contractors will balk at having their oh-so-lucrative contracts listed for the public to review: Politically, though, the bill could run into problems, as many large companies with federal contracts might not want certain information made easily accessible. "Vendors don't want their competitors to know what they're doing and what they're winning," Webber said. Two thoughts spring to mind here: 1. Boo-frickin'-hoo. 2. Then let some other company win the business. I have more to say at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog, which also has a link to a minimum-wage study which shows how a raise will actually decrease the spending power of families who rely on it for their sole income....
August 1, 2006
Airlines To Get Free Ride On Pension Reform?
Congress is about to send a pension-reform bill to the White House that forces employers to meet their funding obligations for employee pension plans. Unfortunately, HR 2830 exempts at least one key industry from meeting that requirement, and tosses some serious pork into the stew to boot. I explain this at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog: Airlines employ hundreds of thousands of Americans and the risk to those pensions will require immediate action. This free pass allows the industry to continue its under-the-radar flight on pensions, which hides the instability of the industry’s economic position. Postponing action does not mean that the PBGC would not have to bail out these pension funds; if history is any judge, exemptions and postponements result in less compliance, not more. Not only does the bill contain these exemptions, putting the retirement of many Americans at risk, the Senate has played their usual pork-barrel games...
August 2, 2006
Two Faces Of Spending
Two more of my posts have appeared at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog today. The first takes a quick look at three amendments to the defense appropriation being debated in the Senate this week. Did you know that a memorial commission, a traveling exhibit on World War II, and a market research program will help us win the war on terror? Neither did I, but Senators Daniel Inouye and John Warner apparently think so. The second post takes a longer look at Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's maiden speech, delivered at Columbia University yesterday. Paulson gave some reason for optimism that the Bush administration might finally get serious about cutting the federal budget after five years of growth in both discretionary and entitlement spending. I say some optimism, because we have heard much of this rhetoric before, and neither Congress nor the White House has had much political will or desire...
August 4, 2006
Cooking The Books In DC
Despite the coming disaster in entitlement spending, just the mention of entitlement reform brings yawns and not-so-surreptitious glances at watches. One of the reasons why the issue gets such low interest from the public is that the costs do not appear in financial reporting for the government. Thanks to the adherence to rules that the government forbids businesses to use, the budget deficit has been chronically and vastly underreported for decades. This practice goes back through administrations of both parties, and Congress under control of both as well. Remember how we balanced the budget and ran surpluses in the 1990s? Well, we didn't, and we didn't even come close. My new post at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog discusses the problem in some detail. The discrepancy arises from the government's decision not to report retirement benefit commitments in the year made, but in the year paid. The SEC strictly forbids...
August 9, 2006
Haste Makes Waste, Especially In Congress
The lack of progress on appropriations in Congress before the summer break portends a tough fall for porkbusters. The Senate will have to combine appropriations into a single omnibus bill, which will invite amendments and earmarks galore: Fiscal conservatives in Congress fear the Senate's failure to get a handle on appropriation bills will lead to a pork-barrel spending spree this fall, undermining repeated promises for fiscal reform. The Senate left for summer recess after completing one of 12 spending bills needed to keep government agencies operating next year, all but assuring the need for an omnibus package, which are typically laden with pet projects never discussed or voted on. "When you have senators ... who have traditionally used these bills to bring home more than their fair share of the bacon -- and are used to doing that -- without some action by the Senate leadership, this omnibus is sure...
The Pork Database Has To Include Contracts
Robert Bate writes about his experiences when federal spending practices come to light in today's Washington Post. Bate recalls his experiences with USAID on a malaria-eradication program that had seen 93% -- almost 19 out of every 20 dollars in the program -- dissipate in administrative and consultinf fees. As I posted today at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog, this not only demonstrates the need for the kind of easily-accessible website that can provide the kind of oversight that cured USAID of pork overload, but it also shows why federal contracts have to be included in the data. Be sure to read the entire post and Bate's excellent article....
August 10, 2006
Did Pork Push Out Counter-Intelligence Officials?
Two officials from a new counterintelligence agency whose budget included earmarks from corrupt Congressman Randy "Duke" Cunningham have abruptly resigned, the Washington Post reports this morning. David Burtt and Joseph Hefferon suddenly resigned from Counterintelligence Field Activity while investigations into pork progressed at the Pentagon and Department of Justice: David A. Burtt II, director of the Counterintelligence Field Activity, the Defense Department's newest intelligence agency whose contracts based on congressional earmarks are under investigation by the Pentagon and federal prosecutors, told his staff yesterday that he and his deputy director will resign at the end of the month. ... Joseph Hefferon "has also decided to retire, after over 31 years of federal service," according to Burtt's message. A Pentagon spokesman yesterday confirmed they were leaving and said it was "a personal decision that they both made together." ... Last March, as a result of the continuing federal investigations arising out...
August 14, 2006
A Glimmer Of Political Courage?
Over at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog, I posted about a quiet effort by the White House to find some bipartisan ground for entitlement reform. This seems remarkable, considering the timing of the feelers. During August, most members of Congress have returned home to tend to their re-election efforts. That hardly seems the most propitious time for those facing election battles to do some long-term thinking, but the Bush administration apparently wants to prepare for a big effort after the midterms have concluded. Read the whole post, and keep an eye out for any other signs of random fiscal responsibility. I'd love to think that we would bring that species back from near-extinction, but color me skeptical, at least until November. Unfortunately, and this reflects on us more than the politicians, very few have ever been elected on the promise to cut off entitlements....
August 15, 2006
Exposing Earmarks
The Sunlight Foundation unveils its new Exposing Earmarks website today, in conjunction with the Club for Growth, Citizens Against Government Waste, The Heritage Foundation, and many in the blogosphere, including Instapundit, Porkbusters and Human Events Online. The Examiner announces the launch in today's edition: Congress is considering a bill — the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations measure — that presently contains 1,867 earmarks worth more than a half-billion tax dollars and averaging nearly $268,000 each. Many are for things that sound like worthy causes such as "hospital facilities and equipment," yet none of the sponsoring congressmen put their names on their earmarks. That's why The Examiner newspapers have joined with the Sunlight Foundation, Porkbusters.org, and Citizens Against Government Waste in posting the database of earmarks in the Labor-HHS appropriations and inviting readers to help identify the congressmen behind each earmark. Organizations like The Heritage Foundation, National Taxpayers Union and...
August 17, 2006
The Post Highlights Pork Database
The new effort by a coalition of bloggers and non-profits to identify pork-barrel projects gets noticed in today's Washington Post. Judy Sarasohn reports on the new Exposing Earmarks website at the Sunlight Foundation: One legislator's "pork," of course, is another's vital public works project. But all are earmarks, those tax and spending directions added to money bills at the behest of anonymous lawmakers -- anonymous, that is, until the legislation is passed and they can boast of it to constituents. A coalition of odd bedfellows is trying to bring more transparency to earmarking by encouraging citizens to get involved in tracking who is trying to get what money for which special interest. And all of this will be online and available to the public. The coalition includes the Sunlight Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste, Porkbusters.org, Human Events Online and the Washington Examiner newspaper. They created a single database of earmarks,...
August 18, 2006
Earmarks, Inc.
(Note: This was the post I was writing when the laptop died. Thanks to good friends who had an advance look at the effort, I can post it now.) Earlier, the Heritage Foundation profiled legislation that provided over $1.5 billion dollars to the Washington DC Metro System, which Dr. Ron Utt called the biggest pork-barrel project in American history. Representative Tom Davis offered HR 3496 as an amendment to the Deep Water Resources Act, even though his boondoggle for the transit system had little to do with deep water or any other kind of resources. At the time, Dr. Utt questioned Rep. Davis’ motives in providing such a thick slice of federal revenue to Maryland and Virginia: Beyond such posturing lies a legislative effort whose origins sprang from an act of constituent service, and chief among the constituents served is the Congressman himself. As originally introduced in July 2005, H.R....
August 22, 2006
Earmark Reform: It's The New Black!
My new post at the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog takes a look at the gathering momentum for earmark reform, even during a Congressional recess. The Christian Science Monitor reports on the energy unleashed by the Sunlight Foundation's new Exposing Earmarks website. Let's continue to push to make pork an unhealthy political diet....
August 28, 2006
The Secret Hold In An Open Society
The hold in the Senate on the Coburn/Obama federal budget database bill has made national news, as people wonder who the anonymous obstructor could be. Hot Air has a video of Brit Hume giving the S 2590 secret hold story national coverage, and he notes that almost three-quarters of the Senate has yet to state whether they instituted the hold. Porkbusters has a running update on the explicit denials from individual Senators. Only 25 have definitively stated that they had nothing to do with the hold so far. TPM Muckraker says they have confirmed 58 Senators that are in the clear. That still leaves more than 40% who haven't bothered to address the issue. I address this in today's Heritage Foundation blog post, but I want to extend my remarks here at CQ. This entire episode should shame every member of the Upper Chamber. Using a cheap and secret political...
August 29, 2006
Name The Secret Holder
The Club For Growth has a new poll on the identity of the Secret Holder -- the Senator who placed an anonymous hold on S.2590, the federal budget database for public scrutiny sponsored by Tom Coburn and Barack Obama. The early voting has Ted "Bridge To Nowhere" Stevens, the man who demanded that his pork pass Congress or he would say "A-beeble-a-beeble-a That's All, Folks!", in the lead, but the Club has several other leading candidates as possibilities. Quite frankly, I believe we are looking at this from the wrong perspective. We're trying to figure out who would put an anonymous hold on legislation that promises a new era of openness and transparency in government. Perhaps we should consider the obvious choices of Senators who would not commit such a cowardly act. If your count looks anything like mine, it's a depressing but revealing exercise. While CQ readers contemplate the...
Bill Frist Pledges To Take S 2590 To Floor
Dean Esmay says he feels suckered with all of the Secret Holder publicity, saying that all we would have lost without the Porkbusting effort was six days. However, this means six legislative days, and there are only 15 of them before the election, according to Frist. The hold would make the calendar very tight, especially considering all of the appropriations bills awaiting action in the Senate. And don't forget that the House still has to take up S. 2590 after the Senate passes it.
Also, one should consider the message that our effort sent. The national attention should convice politicians that a new era of openness in government has come, even if we have to thrust it upon them.
A Few Moments On The Phone
Before I met with Senator Bill Frist earlier today, I took a few minutes to call the offices of the few remaining Senators who had not gone on the record regarding the hold on S. 2590. TPM Muckraker has been keeping track of the score, and now Hot Air reports that we're down to the Final Three. When I checked the list at TPMM, I noted three Republicans whose lack of response puzzled me -- well, two of them, anyway. Jon Kyl has been a consistent voice for fiscal responsibility, so I took out the cell phone and called his offices in DC. The friendly staffer who answered told me unequivocally that Kyl did not place the hold on S2590, and in fact supported the bill. I asked twice just to be sure he knew this for a fact, and received strong assurances both times. Next I called Pete Domenici's...
August 30, 2006
Did Coburn Out Stevens As The Secret Holder?
TPM Muckraker found a story in an Arkansas newspaper that reported on a speech by Senator Tom Coburn on his bill to create an online federal budget database, where Coburn fingers the Secret Holder among his colleagues. The culprit? Pretty much whom you'd expect: One of the senators most criticized for his personal projects, Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, has a hold of his own on Coburn’s bill to make public the spending patterns of the government. Called the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, the legislation calls for the creation of a database open to the public where citizens can track government spending. “He’s the only senator blocking it,” Coburn said of Stevens. Of course, I'm still waiting for a reply to Steven's office on whether Stevens put the hold on the bill. And one of the points raised by TPMM sounds familiar as well: Stevens has been the odds-on...
August 31, 2006
Frist Confirms S.2590 Will Come To Floor
Earlier today, I contacted Bill Frist's office to ask for an unqualified statement that would clearly state his intent to bring the Coburn/Obama bill, creating an Internet-based searchable database for the federal budget, to the Senate floor for a vote regardless of holds. Fifteen minutes ago, Senator Frist posted this to his blog: I’m very encouraged to see that all one hundred Senators have now answered the blogosphere’s inquiries on the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. Now is the time to act. In September, I will bring S. 2590 to the floor of the Senate for the vote it deserves. Frist had to take care to keep from unduly antagonizing Robert Byrd and Ted Stevens, the two Senators that acknowledged their holds on the legislation. This statement makes clear that Frist will bring this bill to an up-or-down vote regardless of any attempted obstructionism, but he will still try...
September 5, 2006
The Hill Plays Grab-Ass With S2590
When we started the day, the Coburn/Obama bill to establish a searchable database for the federal budget, a great new tool to keep appropriations above board and to establish accountability for how our money is spent, had no holds and looked ready to receive a vote by unanimous consent. By the end of the day, two politicians from each side had placed holds on the legislation, one from each party. No one knows who the Democrat is, but the Republican is rumored to be Ted Stevens, who had just released his previous hold after an avalanche of criticism. Bill Frist has made it clear that the bill will receive a vote this month, regardless of how many holds it receives: My Democrat colleagues have not yet cleared this legislation ... but I'm confident that they will do so promptly or pay the consequences of continued obstruction. Now is the time...
September 7, 2006
Coburn-Obama Federal Spending Database Passes -- Unanimously!
The Senate has busted through the holds put on by members and passed S2590, the Coburn-Obama bill establishing the federal spending database we have demanded. Bill Frist announces it at his VOLPAC blog: Tonight I’m proud to report that the Senate unanimously passed S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. The passage of this legislation is a triumph for transparency in government, for fiscal discipline, and for the bipartisan citizen journalism of the blogosphere. Without the efforts of ordinary Americans empowered by the Internet, including many hardworking members of the iFrist Volunteers, this legislation might easily have been successfully obstructed. Instead, the unprecedented synergy between online grassroots activists and Senate leadership provides a new model for participatory democracy in action. The bill now goes to the House, where their version exempts contractors from the database. We need to pressure House leadership to accept the Senate version...
September 8, 2006
House And Senate Reach Agreement On Federal Spending Database
It looks like momentum has built for the reformers for openness in government, especially appropriations. One day after Senator Bill Frist pushed through S.2590, the Coburn-Obama bill establishing a on-line, comprehensive, searchable database for all federal spending, the two chambers of Congress have agreed on a final version of the bill. House Majority Whip John Boehner has agreed to schedule a vote next week, according to this release from Senator Tom Coburn's office: House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (Mo.), U.S. Senators Tom Coburn (Okla.), Barack Obama (Ill.), and Tom Carper (Del.), and Government Reform Chairman Tom Davis (Va.) today announced that they have reached agreement on legislation to increase accountability and transparency by establishing a public database to track federal grants and contracts. House Majority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) announced he plans to schedule the agreed-upon language for House floor consideration next week. "This process has focused on enhancing the...
September 12, 2006
A Strange Perspective On Pork
Today the media gave us two decidedly different takes on porkbusting. USA Today's Richard Wolf lauded the 'blogosphere' -- the quotes demonstrating that we pesky kids still haven't quite made it yet! -- for pushing for greater government oversight and uniting across partisan lines to fight pork-barrel politics: When watchdog groups that monitor federal spending wanted more information on 1,800 "pork barrel" projects buried in a House appropriations bill, they listed them on the Internet and asked readers to dig deeper. Within days, details began pouring in. The same thing happened when Porkbusters.org enlisted readers of its website to find out which senator had blocked legislation that would create an online database of federal grants and contracts. One by one, senators were eliminated until Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., were uncovered. The two episodes illustrate the latest trend in government oversight: More light is being thrown on Congress,...
September 13, 2006
Senate, House Agree On Final Spending Database Bill (Updated!)
** Updated -- see below! ** Senator Tom Coburn's office has announced that the Senate has just passed a new bill to replace the language of the original S.2590, which establishes an on-line searchable database for federal spending. This action will expedite the legislative process and may put the bill on President Bush's desk by tomorrow: The Senate just passed an amended version of the Coburn-Obama database bill based on our agreement with the House. Following House passage of the bill the measure will go to the president for his signature. Tonight’s action in the Senate means the Senate will not need to revisit the measure as the House will vote on this identical measure tonight or tomorrow. The Senate, under Bill Frist's guidance, simply took the modified language under consideration in the House and passed it themselves first, apparently by acclamation. This eliminates the need for a conference committee...
September 14, 2006
The Momentum For Open Government Grows
The House has become the latest showcase for the building momentum for openness and accountability in federal appropriations. New rules for the House that require the listing of all earmark sponsors in the Congressional Record passed by a much wider margin than first thought, 245-171. The rule takes effect immediately and will apply to a wide range of legislation and conference reports, forcing earmarkers to own their pork instead of dodging responsibility for the pork. The vote shows who on the Hill gets the new paradigm, and who still lives in the passing age of pork. Democrats voted 147-45 to defeat the new rule, and that included their leadership. Among those opposing the identification of earmarks are Nancy Pelosi, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Patrick Kennedy, Tom Lantos, Dennis Kucinich, John Conyers, Betty McCollum, Allan Mollohan, Barney Frank, Henry Waxman, and Ike Skelton, some of whom have been named as committee chairs if...
September 22, 2006
New Boss, Same As The Old Boss?
When the Democrats had more confidence about winning control of the House, they openly discussed committee leadership positions in the new power structure. One of the most important chairs, Appropriations, would move from Jerry Lewis (R-CA) to John Murtha (D-PA), who also covets the Majority Leader position. Lewis is currently under FBI investigation for his dealings with lobbyists, and the Democrats wanted to make an argument regarding corruption as a reason to put people like Murtha in charge. However, Paul at TPM Muckraker demonstrates that the new boss would be much the same as the old boss: Lewis had former aides Jeffrey Shockey and Letitia White lobbying out of the D.C. firm Copeland Lowery, run by Lewis pal Bill Lowery. The firm's clients showered Lewis with donations, and he showered them right back with millions in contracts. Murtha has aides in at least two firms. Paul Magliochetti, a ten-year appropriations...
Lounging At The LSC, Plus Other Heritage Posts
It's been such a busy week here at CQ, I forgot to highlight some of the Heritage Foundation blogging I've been doing. Today's post talks about the never-ending requests for cash coming from the Legal Services Corporation, the federal agency that provides legal assistance to low-income Americans who cannot otherwise afford it. Now that is an honorable mandate for any organization, although one can certainly debate whether the federal government should provide it instead of private foundations. (This is separate from public defenders, which the government must and should provide for those accused of criminal activity.) However, LSC has been less than honorable in its efforts to carry out that mandate. Instead of using their budget for representation, they've spent it on tony Georgetown digs, and managed to get screwed on the lease arrangement -- to the tune of at least $1.5 million. Their large and comfortable space has plenty...
September 25, 2006
Line-Item Veto Presser To Pressure The Senate
Now that we have won major battles on the federal spending database and the new House rules on identifying earmarkers, we still have one more effort to shepherd to victory. The group Citizens Against Government Waste will hold a press conference this week in order to put pressure on the Senate to pass the line-item veto bill passed by the House last June. The Senate version, S.2381, has been stalled since May, and with the legislative session winding down, time may start running out for the new line-item veto. I wrote about this for the Heritage Foundation Policy Blog today. Some feel the new approach taken by the line-item veto is too weak to overcome all of the excessive spending in Congress, but I argue that even a little bit helps: The question about the line-item veto isn’t whether it would do damage to the Constitution, it’s whether it would...
September 29, 2006
Oberstar Fails The Pork Test
The House has considered a new Coast Guard appropriation (HR 5681), but they did so under a suspension of the rules. This parliamentary manuever allows Representatives to undermine the new rule just created that forces them to identify their earmarks in the Congressional Record. Sure enough, sources on the Hill tells me that some shenanigans occurred with the Coast Guard Authorization Act, and section 405 confirms it. The addition to HR 5681 authorizes a multimillion-dollar research program at the Great Lakes Maritime Research Institute, a joint project of the Universities of Minnesota and Wisconsin. The bill requires Congress to fund a study for the following purposes: (K) identify ways to improve the integration of the Great Lakes marine transportation system into the national transportation system; (L) examine the potential of expanded operations on the Great Lakes marine transportation system; (M) identify ways to include intelligent transportation applications into the Great...
October 2, 2006
Behold The Power Of Pork
The power of appropriators to shape legislation in all other areas of policy gets amplified through the use of pork-barrel politics, and John Murtha in particular has mastered this technique. The New York Times profiles Murtha and gets him on the record, bragging about his effectiveness in using pork to gain power: Members have watched with envy as Mr. Murtha has used earmarks to remake Johnstown, Pa., an impoverished former steel town that now includes a Murtha highway, a Murtha airport and Murtha health centers. He has steered billions of dollars to his district over the years, including more than $80 million in the defense spending bill passed Friday, according to a preliminary tally. Mr. Murtha’s patronage has transformed Johnstown into a national hub of the defense business, attracting giants like Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. He even built one contractor from scratch. In 1988, Mr. Murtha asked the chancellor...
October 3, 2006
The Next Great Internet Sensation
I had a chance to take a look at a website that will delight porkbusters across the political spectrum. The good folks at OMB Watch, in conjunction with The Sunlight Foundation, will launch FedSpending.org on October 10th. FedSpending actually steals a march on the Coburn-Obama federal database by putting all of the federal contracts and grants in the federal budget in a searchable database. And let me tell you, if the federal government makes it work one-tenth as well as this, we've spent our money well indeed. FedSpending didn't just restrain itself to FY2005. They assembled spending data for every year since FY2000, and the amounts account for the majority of federal spending. Just as the government directed, FS separates contracts and grants into two separate databases. Users will be able to sort spending by state, Congressional district, recipient, and by program. Porkbusters can look up individual contractors and grantees...
October 4, 2006
OMB Wants A Few Good Bloggers
The Office of Management and Budget will host the new Coburn-Obama database, and they want to continue in the reform spirit. In that effort, the OMB wants to draft bloggers to support its other clean-government initiatives: The Office of Management and Budget is turning to bloggers for help in pushing the OMB's government reform plans after last week's success of its pet project, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act, also known as the Coburn-Obama bill. ... Bush signed the bill last week, flanked by the bloggers who had led the charge, including those from Porkbusters.org, Townhall.com, Instapundit.com and Human Events Online's Right Angle blog. Soon afterward, OMB Deputy Director Clay Johnson III spent an hour with the bloggers. Right after that, OMB Director Rob Portman and Johnson appeared at a luncheon to talk about OMB's government performance push. Portman also talked about the blogger fest, saying, "Clay asked them,...
October 10, 2006
Bridge To Nowhere Senator Defeats Reform Again
Ted Stevens, who championed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere and threatened to quit the Senate if denied his pork, has quietly undermined another attempt at pork reform. Robert Novak reports that Stevens stripped a key requirement in the Defense appropriation that would have required a review of all earmarks: Sen. Ted Stevens, considered the Republican king of pork, just before the pre-election congressional recess killed a requirement for the Defense Department to evaluate unauthorized earmarks imposed by members of Congress on the Pentagon. Freshman Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma had won Senate passage of the ''report card'' as part of the Defense appropriations bill. The evaluation would show that the military really does not want most of the estimated $8 billion in earmarks added by Congress this year. However, Stevens succeeded in stripping the reform from the final version of the bill before it was signed by President Bush. Coburn...
October 14, 2006
The Answers To The FedSpending Pop Quiz
On October 3rd, I posted about the coming Internet sensation for pork-barrel spending foes: FedSpending.org. The interactive database provided by OMB Watch and the Sunlight Foundation holds five years of federal spending on contracts and grants, sortable by congressional district and containing plenty of details on the projects the money supported. The data comprises six years of spending, allowing for the proper historical context. OMB Watch and the Sunlight Foundation spent a lot of time and money on this project when the Coburn-Obama federal budget database seemed very unlikely to pass, and now it serves as a benchmark for pork investigators to demand from the federal site when it launches. When I wrote the post, I had been given access to the beta site, but only on the condition that I didn't reveal any of the data -- which was really frustrating, because the site provided so many interesting nuggets...
October 24, 2006
Allen On Porkbusting, Webb Absent
If anyone thinks that Washington hasn't at least heard the outcry over pork-barrel spending, George Allen's post at Redstate will provide enough evidence for even the most hardened cynic. Running for re-election in a tight campaign, Allen understands that the key to victory is to convince fiscal conservatives that he has joined the reform effort, and he outlines his case: Porkbusters represents citizens demanding accountability from their government. That is grassroots activism at its very best, and I share their goal. Congress doesn’t have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem. Toward that end, I have supported a “Taxpayers’ Bill of Rights,” including: * The Line Item Veto: Senator Talent and I have taken the lead on legislation proposing a Constitutional amendment to give the President the authority that 43 State governors presently possess, and which I had as Governor of Virginia – the line-item veto – which would...
October 28, 2006
Just A Little Sweeter
Earlier today, I received a package in the mail from the White House. In recognition of the efforts made by the various bloggers to get the Coburn-Obama federal spending database legislation passed, the White House offered to send us official copies of the signed bill once the government had printed them. The offer took me a little by surprise, as I was unaware that could be done. I ordered two copies. Figuring to frame them, I went to Michael's and shopped for the materials. Actually, I first asked about a custom framing solution, but when the estimate came to around $350, I thought it sounded like the kind of government programs we hoped to stop with this legislation. Instead, I found a way to do it myself and bought a frame and some backing paper. While we measured the printed bill -- it comes on 10 x 15 sheets, so...
November 11, 2006
Pork Queen?
Scott Lindlaw at the AP provides an analysis of what Nancy Pelosi's speakership will mean to the San Francisco area and to California as a whole once she takes the gavel. Lindlaw notes the financial benefits other areas have received when their Representative becomes Speaker of the House, and notes that Pelosi has hardly made pork a stranger in the past: Tip O'Neill secured down payments for Boston's Big Dig. Sam Rayburn sent gushers of cash back to Texas, along with tax breaks that helped its oil industry. Hospitals, schools and nonprofits in Dennis Hastert's hometown of Aurora, Ill., have seen millions roll in during his reign. Now Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco is poised to follow them as speaker of the House — a perch predecessors used to channel big cash to pet projects back home. "There's a long tradition where not only can you bring back your...
November 20, 2006
Porker Of The Month?
Citizens Against Government Waste has named John Thune its Porker of the Month. Thune earned this distinction by getting a $2.3 billion loan for Dakota, Minnesota, & Eastern Railroad, a former client of his during his lobbying days, and Congress has barely even debated the outlay: The loan guarantee from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) would allow the Dakota, Minnesota, and Eastern Railroad (DM&E) to expand and improve a rail line that is used primarily to transport coal from Wyoming to Minnesota. In apparent anticipation of the loan, Sen. Thune was instrumental in increasing the FRA’s loan guarantee authority from $3.5 billion to $35 billion in the 2005 Safe, Accountable, Flexible, and Efficient Transportation Equity Act. DM&E paid Thune $220,000 in 2003 and 2004 to lobby for the loan before his election to the Senate. According to BearingPoint (a strategic consulting firm), the loan would require an annual payment of...
November 25, 2006
Why I Oppose Pork - And Why You Should Care
This morning, as I prepared for the annual Battle Between Good And Evil (also known as the Notre Dame - USC game), I received an e-mail from a Minnesota reader, Frank S, who scolded me for my insistence on fighting pork. He writes that American voters are a lost cause to the addiction: So, let me get this straight. Independent mush-minded robots, who voted for "change" by putting bigger spending, bigger govt., bigger porker, surrender monkey Democrats into power can be won over to us Republicans by promising smaller govt., less spending, less pork, and promises of victory? We are a nation of fat, slobbering cowards, standing on the shoulders of great men, all the while making a mockery of our former glory. Most Americans, including the independents you find yourself bootlicking, determined that this war is just taking to damn long to finish. And anyway, CNN says that US...
January 9, 2007
The Addiction Remains Strong
The new Democratic majority in Congress has made ethics reform one of their centerpiece issues for the 110th session, and they have some good ideas about how to clean up the legislative branch. One of their proposals contains a ban against the use of corporate jets at commercial rates, a huge discount on charter rates. Unfortunately, Democrats in the Senate have exhibited less enthusiasm for this reform: Senators are ready to relinquish lobbyist-paid steak dinners and skybox seats at sports arenas. But giving up the use of corporate jets at bargain prices might be one reform too many for them. While a ban on using corporate jets flew through the House last week, it faces strong political headwinds in the Senate, which began debate Monday on its own ethics reforms. ... Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who as the new Senate Rules Committee chairwoman will play a central role in the...
January 13, 2007
Doolittle Fires His Wife
Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) has terminated his relationship with his wife's consulting business for fundraising after having barely retained his seat in the midterm elections. Julie Doolittle took commissions from the contributions made to the Congressman's re-election campaigns, essentially allowing 15% of all political donations to end up in the Doolittle family checking account: Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) said yesterday that he will no longer employ his wife as his campaign fundraiser, an arrangement that allowed her to collect a 15 percent cut of donations to his campaign and political action committees -- more than $100,000 since 2003. Doolittle, who has drawn criticism for links to disgraced lobbyist Jack A. Abramoff, said he will hire an outside fundraiser. He made the announcement in a commentary article he distributed to newspapers in his Northern California district, noting his tough battle for reelection. ... The change was one of 10 steps...
January 22, 2007
The New York Times Hearts Porkers
The New York Times' Nicholas Confessore really needs a remedial civics lesson -- and so do a few New York politicians. In an article covering the pork-barrel controversies in the state, Confessore reports that some officeholders want to defend earmarks from the state budget for home-district vote-buying as -- get this -- the "purest expression of self-government": To some people, member items — the grants that lawmakers award, with little debate and much secrecy, to community groups and pet projects back in their home districts — symbolize the worst of New York’s political culture. Member items have gone to fix the roof of a hunting club near Albany, help finance a pro-wrestling hall of fame in Schenectady and, most infamously, open a cheese museum in the city of Rome. But to Dale M. Volker, a Republican state senator from western New York, member items are nothing less than the Legislature’s...
February 10, 2007
Democratic Lobbying Reform: More Middlemen
Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats won their majority in part on the promise to clean up Congress. In particular, they railed against the influence of lobbyists and their ability to curry favor with legislators through free trips and other perks. The new majority passed a slew of new rules that supposedly ended these abuses, but as it turns out, all they did was require more featherbedding: The 110th Congress opened with the passage of sweeping new rules intended to curb the influence of lobbyists by prohibiting them from treating lawmakers to meals, trips, stadium box seats or the discounted use of private jets. But it did not take long for lawmakers to find ways to keep having fun while lobbyists pick up the tab. In just the last two months, lawmakers invited lobbyists to help pay for a catalog of outings: lavish birthday parties in a lawmaker’s honor ($1,000 a...
February 15, 2007
Federal Spending Database On Track For January 2008
Since I'm kicking back at home nursing a case of the creeping crud, I had an opportunity to participate in a conference call with officials at the Office of Management and Budget regarding the status of the federal spending database and website. The site, which has an interim announcement and commentary page, resulted from the efforts of Tom Coburn and Barack Obama in the previous session of Congress to create accountability for federal spending, and Congress mandated that it be operational by January 2008. Clay Johnson, Deputy Director for Management, Office of Management and Budget, and Robert Shea, Associate Director for Management, addressed a few of the bloggers who helped push the project last year. NZ Bear and Robert Bluey joined me for the update. Both men gave an optimistic view of the project, but wanted help in determining how the final project should look. They have made the wise...
February 20, 2007
Spitzer's Slush Fund
The transition from reformer to corrupt politician is an old topic in American culture. It drives efforts to "clean house" as happened in 1994 and 2006 in Congress, and it played an instrumental role in establishing term limits in state offices, especially in the legislatures. Part of that archetype involves a long exposure to political pressures and temptations that come with power, usually over a decade or two. In New York, it appears that the process takes three months: Governor Spitzer is planning to funnel millions of dollars in borrowed state money to Senate Democrats, who have been secretly asked by the administration to submit their wish lists for local capital projects, according to lawmakers. The move marks the governor's boldest effort to solidify his influence over the Democratic conference, whose support he is counting on in the short term to give him an edge during negotiations, and in the...
March 2, 2007
Porking Up The War Bill
I have questioned the use of supplemental appropriations to fund the Iraq war and the general war on terror for quite some time. That approach opens the funding process to even more shenanigans as the bills move through Congress, and it leaves the effort exposed to attacks from the anti-war Democrats, especially now that John Murtha controls defense spending in the House. The Democrats may have retreated on the latter issue for the moment, but Representatives have not lost their taste for pork: As House Democrats wrangle over details of a $100 billion war spending bill -- including whether restrictions should be placed on troops sent to Iraq -- some members want to add significant money for agricultural relief, Hurricane Katrina reconstruction and other nonmilitary projects. Rep. Collin C. Peterson (D-Minn.), who chairs the Agriculture Committee, said yesterday that rural states hit hard by floods, droughts and snowstorms in the...
March 12, 2007
Earmark Reform Out Of Vogue Already?
One of the few highlights of the 2006 election came in the form of renewed discussion of the corrosive power of pork-barrel spending. Both parties, despite having long histories of pork production, promised to champion earmark reform and new sunlight on appropriation processes in Congress. The Democrats won the majorities in both chambers, and those of us who demanded earmark reform hoped that we might finally see progress. Unfortunately, we see cloudiness on a Sunshine Week, as Mark Tapscott pointed out today: When I heard last week from Hill sources that the White House congressional liason staff was pressuring OMB Director Rob Portman to not release all of the earmarks requested by Members of Congress to executive agencies under the FY2005 budget, I called the OMB press office. When I asked for a copy of the earmark database and copies of all correspondence between OMB and executive branch officials and...
March 21, 2007
Pork Serves The White House
Mark Tapscott writes a provocative article which takes the Bush administration to task for not fulfilling its promise to end pork-barrel spending. Noting that the President pledged to cut earmarks by half in the last State of the Union speech, Mark wants to know why he left it at 50%: President Bush vows to veto an Iraq emergency supplemental funding bill if it comes to his desk stuffed with pork unrelated to keeping U.S. troops in Iraq properly armed, clothed and fed. But Bush may have undercut his ability to shape the Iraq bill and indeed all other spending measures with a State of the Union promise. You will recall that Bush condemned earmarks and challenged Congress to work with him to cut them in half. ... Curiously, Bush offered no rationale for preserving half of the earmarks he rightly condemned, nor did he even hint at a timetable for...
April 4, 2007
Newspeak For Pork: 'Unrelated Items'
One of the more annoying tendencies of modern culture is to elevate euphemisms to daily usage in order to diminish the unpleasant. Problems became "issues", and "issues" became "opportunities", and so on. The Washington Post's Jonathan Weisman introduces a new euphemism to help us feel better about pork-barrel spending, while noting its universality. He calls them "unrelated items": To President Bush, they are "pork-barrel projects completely unrelated to the war," items in the House and Senate war-spending bills such as peanut storage facilities and aid to spinach farmers that insult the seriousness of the conflict and exist only to buy votes. But such spending has been part of Iraq funding bills since the war began, sometimes inserted by the president himself, sometimes added by lawmakers with bipartisan aplomb. A few of the items may have weighed on the votes for spending bills that have now topped half a trillion dollars,...
April 17, 2007
The 110th Congress Of Irony
Congress takes up many silly, superfluous, but essentially harmless bills every session. Usually these consist of naming post offices or proclaiming National Caesar Salad Month, which allows constituents back home to believe that their Representative or Senator actually does something valuable. As we have seen lately, it keeps people from asking what the hell Congress has done in its first 100 days. However, sometimes they adopt resolutions so laughable that one has to bring hydraulic jacks to place one's jaw back in place. This week, Congress plans to dedicate a coming month to -- are you ready for this? -- financial literacy! HR 273 promises to highlight all the failings of the American people, in the biggest case of the pot calling the kettle black. Perhaps Congress might want to consider leading by example, rather than dedicating a month of the year to scolding its constituents. They refer to the...
April 23, 2007
The Culture Of Corruption In High Gear
Maybe we misunderstood the Democrats in the midterm elections last year. When Nancy Pelosi talked about the "culture of corruption", we assumed she meant that the Democrats opposed it. It turns out that they wanted a chance to benefit from it, as their first-quarter fundraising numbers show, as Ken Silverstein at Harper's reports (via Memeorandum) Last spring, with Republicans controlling both houses of Congress, I wrote an item saying that for corporations and federal contractors looking for favors in Washington, it was hardly even worth buying a Democrat anymore. But the November 2006 Democratic victory changed all that. Political fundraising numbers were released last week and they show that during the first quarter of 2007, Democrats raised slightly more money overall ($47.7 million) than Republicans ($47.4 million). Compare that to the first quarter of 2003, when the GOP trounced the Democrats in the hunt for cash $54 million to $19...
May 2, 2007
Feinstein Revisited
I'm getting some e-mail and comments about the David Keene essay in The Hill regarding Dianne Feinstein regarding the multiple conflicts of interest between her Appropriations subcommittee assignment and her husband's businesses. Two days ago, Keene noted that her status as a "Cardinal" in the Appropriations process, combined with her position on the Senate Rules committee, left her able to oversee the issuance of contracts to businesses that enriched her family: California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) chairs the Senate Rules Committee, but she’s also a Cardinal. She is currently chairwoman of the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies subcommittee, but until last year was for six years the top Democrat on the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (or “Milcon”) sub-committee, where she may have directed more than $1 billion to companies controlled by her husband. If the inferences finally coming out about what she did while on Milcon prove...
May 12, 2007
Lobbying Reform -- The New Argyle
Remember when lobbying reform was all the rage in Washington, and how all the best people demanded it? Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid talked about the "culture of corruption" and how they would clean up this here one-horse town, if the American people would just put them in charge of it. Now it appears that lobbying reform has the same fashion sense as grunge bands and Miami Vice pastels: House Democrats are suddenly balking at the tough lobbying reforms they touted to voters last fall as a reason for putting them in charge of Congress. Now that they are running things, many Democrats want to keep the big campaign donations and lavish parties that lobbyists put together for them. They're also having second thoughts about having to wait an extra year before they can become high-paid lobbyists themselves should they retire or be defeated at the polls. The growing resistance...
May 22, 2007
A New Call For Citizen Legislators
My good friend Mark Tapscott calls for a return to the term-limit revolution in his new Examiner editorial today. He sees a citizen legislature as the only solution for the pork-barrel politics used by today's politicians to keep and wield power. A "transpartisan" coalition could effect that kind of radical change by harnessing the power of the Internet and forcing the change through the states to bypass Congress for a Constitutional amendment. Can we afford to turn out all of Congress during wartime? And if we replace them, what happens to the balance of power in DC? Over at Heading Right, I take a look at the benefits and potential pitfalls of a citizen Congress -- and the difficulties in getting there at all....
May 24, 2007
Hold On Tight To That Bundling
The Hill follows up on its reporting about sudden Democratic antipathy to cleansing the political process of lobbyist influence, focusing today on the issue of bundling. Despite the rhetoric of the last campaign, it turns out that many Democrats like lobbyist influence, especially those in leadership positions: Powerful Democratic chairmen and subcommittee chairmen have relied on lobbyists to raise money during the first three months of this year, according to recent fundraising reports, which cast light on the strong opposition to lobbying reform legislation scheduled to reach the floor today. Conservative Democrats in the Blue Dog Coalition have been particularly leery of legislation that would require lobbyists to reveal in public reports the total amount of contributions they raise or “bundle” for lawmakers. Many Democrats voiced concerns at a closed-door caucus meeting on the lobbying reform bill last week. “Instead of passing a bunch of little bills, I would rather...
May 31, 2007
Guess Who's Forming The Frosh PAC?
The Democrats, as often observed, won a majority in Congress by demanding an end to the "culture of corruption" and undue lobbyist influence. The main beneficiaries of that campaign, the 41 freshman Democrats in the House, now want to form a political action committee to increase their clout on the Hill. So who did they choose to form and run it? Three guesses, and the first two don't count: The class of 41 freshman House Democrats has selected a registered lobbyist to form its political action committee, in what ethics watchdogs and Republicans are calling a contradiction of their promise to end a "culture of corruption" in Washington. The custodian of the Democratic Freshmen PAC is William C. Oldaker, 65, whose most-recent lobbying clients include the oil industry, the tobacco lobby, pharmaceutical industries and American Indian gambling interests. Mr. Oldaker also has been removed from several Democratic PACs over conflict-of-interest...
June 4, 2007
Dollar Bill Jefferson To Get Indicted: CBS (Update: No They Didn't)
Federal authorities will indict Rep. William Jefferson on several counts of corruption today, CBS News reports. The move comes long after a series of raids triggered a Constitutional showdown between Congress and the Department of Justice: Sources tell CBS News that authorities are seeking an indictment against Congressman William Jefferson, D-La., on more than a dozen counts involving public corruption. Jefferson has been the subject of a ongoing probe in which FBI agents allegedly found more than $90,000 in cash in his freezer. CBS News correspondent Bob Orr reports that the Justice Department is expected to unveil the charges later today. This was the latest development in the 16-month international investigation of Jefferson, who allegedly accepted $100,000 from a telecommunications businessman, $90,000 of which was later recovered from a freezer in the congressman's Louisiana home. The indictment puts Nancy Pelosi in a tough spot. She removed Jefferson from the Ways...
June 7, 2007
Dollar Bill's Money On Ice -- Again!
Rep. William Jefferson finds himself almost back to square one regarding his finances as a result of the corruption investigation of his alleged corruption. The year after the FBI found $90,000 in cash inside Jefferson's freezer, a judge has frozen his assets: A federal judge in Virginia issued a restraining order to freeze the assets of Louisiana Democrat, Representative William Jefferson, including stocks he owned from two West African companies. Jefferson was indicted Monday on charges he solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes. The congressman is facing 16 criminal counts including a forfeiture count. Federal prosecutors have said they will seek to recoup hundreds of thousands of dollars from Jefferson that they believe he obtained illicitly by peddling his influence to help broker business deals in Africa. The man who redefined cold cash will now have to watch his accounts and assets frozen by federal authorities. They'll need...
June 8, 2007
Roll Out The Pork Barrel For HASC
The Hill reports on an old-fashioned pork pull at the House Armed Services Committee, but only a few select guests can enjoy the festivities. Appropriators on the HASC have earmarked millions of dollars that primarily benefit their lobbyist friends. The top two offenders show the bipartisan nature of pork: Rep. Jim Saxton (R-N.J.), ranking member of the Air and Land Forces defense subcommittee, reaped the most money from employees working at firms that would benefit from his funding requests. During the last election cycle and the first three months of this year, Saxton’s campaign collected 118 contributions worth $91,000 from the employees and political action committees (PACs) of firms such as Lockheed Martin, L-3 Communications, Price Systems and NetIDEAS. Saxton has also requested millions of dollars in project spending for these companies. He solicited $3 million for L-3 Communications, which has a facility in Camden, N.J., to develop a high-resolution...
June 13, 2007
Naming Contest: What To Call Earmarks?
Nancy Pelosi, who campaigned on a platform of ending lobbyist influence and the "culture of corruption" in Congress, has unveiled a new strategy to do both. She wants people to call pork-barrel line items something other than "earmarks" so that Congress can get back to stuffing legislation full of pet projects and keep their leverage with the lobbyists: The congressional spending season began with a blowup over earmarks in the House yesterday, as the first bill to reach a vote prompted a White House veto threat and scores of amendments from Republicans furious with Democrats' handling of pet-project spending in the measures. Debate on the $36 billion homeland security bill, which would fund the Federal Emergency Management Agency, border security and counterterrorism measures, bogged down last night as Republicans pushed scores of amendments aimed at banning the use of counterterrorism money for designer handbags, puppet shows and other programs included...
June 14, 2007
Rename Earmarks - The Top Ten Run-Off (Update & Bump)
The winner is ToddG! We'll send him the book, and thanks to everyone who participated! Yesterday, I asked CQ readers to help Nancy Pelosi with her strategy to fight the "culture of corruption," which consists of forgetting the term "earmarks" rather than getting rid of them altogether. We have to call them something, though, and I offered a free copy of The Reagan Diaries to the CQ reader who submitted the replacement that most captured the spirit of earmarking. And we got a terrific response! In fact, it was so good that I had a tough time selecting the top ten responses. Many of you like acronyms, and several of the best made the list. I took into consideration endorsements of nominations in the comments, too. If your entry didn't make the Top Ten, it's only because we had so many excellent suggestions. Cast your vote for the best of...
Boehner Beats Pelosi On Earmarks CRAPs
John Boehner and the House Republican Caucus have won their battle against Nancy Pelosi and David Obey on earmarks. Boehner sent the following memo to House Republicans: I’m writing to update you on the status of our united Republican effort to compel the Democratic majority to abandon its plan for slush funds for secret earmarks. A tentative agreement has been reached between Republican and Democratic leaders – an agreement that represents a victory for House Republicans. The terms of the agreement are as follows: * Democrats will abandon their plans to pass appropriations bills with slush funds for secret earmarks. The plan announced last month by Chairman Obey to keep all earmarks secret until “air-dropping” them into conference reports will be dropped, effective immediately. Two appropriations bills (Homeland Security, Military Quality) that include little or no earmarks will move forward. Following consideration of these two bills, all 10 remaining appropriations...
June 20, 2007
Uncle Chuck's Suck-Up Strategy: Staffers
With much more bright light shining on relationships between politicians and lobbyists, the process of buying votes has evolved. Now that people have demanded openness regarding schedules of elected officials, the focus of lobbyist interaction has fallen on senior staffers to these officials instead. Chuck Schumer, one of the Democratic leadership that demanded an end to the "culture of corruption", has issued invitations to lobbyists to attend a reception with "Individuals Representing Members of the Senate Democratic Caucus" -- with "suggested donations" starting at $1,000 a plate: This invite first appeared (in print only) in Jeffrey Birnbaum's K Street column in Tuesday's Washington Post, but Capitol Briefing can add a few notable details. Read the fine print and you'll see that senators aren't the draw at this event, slated for July 10 at the DSCC's Mott House across the street from the Capitol. Officially, lobbyists are asked to give or...
July 3, 2007
Guess Who Likes Earmarks?
Those of us who rail against earmarks and pork-barrel politics argue in part that the resultant spending usually goes to functions that have nothing to do with federal authority. These usually serve as incumbency protection efforts, attempts to drown the district in enough cash that it pressures voters to retain incumbents, in order to maintain the gravy train. One might think that a more libertarian incumbent would eschew such grubby tactics -- but the Houston Chronicle's investigation into Texas earmarks proves that theory incorrect (h/t: CQ reader Kirk H): U.S. Rep. Ron Paul of Lake Jackson, the Libertarian-leaning contender for the Republican presidential nomination, long has waged war on the widespread federal spending he views as outside constitutional boundaries. But the congressman, who often votes against spending bills, including funds for the Iraq war, leads the Houston-area delegation in the number of earmarks, or special funding requests, that he is...
July 18, 2007
The Case Of The Mystery Earmark
It's hardly a case for Sherlock Holmes, but a million dollars of your money went missing yesterday. Congress earmarked it to an outift called the Center for Instrumented Critical Infrastructure, despite the fact that no one could quite tell whether or not this Center exists, let alone what they need with the money. And despite the best efforts of one particular porkbuster, the money vanished into the thin hot air of Capitol Hill. At Heading Right, we take a look at the mystery, and find the usual suspect. It didn't take Sherlock Holmes to figure this out, either. Unfortunately, in the end, it seems more like Murder on the Orient Express, where everyone did it -- as it usually turns out with earmarks....
GOP Still Hasn't Learned On Pork
During the 110th Congress, critics of the Democrats have had plenty of material with which to work, especially on earmarks. Every week, it seems, another story about Democratic earmarks appears, including today on a mystery earmark that cost American taxpayers the equivalent of 40 years salary for an average American family. That doesn't mean that every Republican has learned their lesson on spending -- and in one case, a GOP Congressman seems determined to learn the wrong lesson. First, though, let's check in with David Harsanyi of the Denver Post and the author of an upcoming book, Nanny State, about government overreach. He wrote a column criticizing Tom Tancredo for pushing earmarks that totalled over $200 million, and Tancredo objected: David Harsanyi pointed out that I am attempting to obtain more than $200 million in federal funding for “pet projects” this year. What he neglected to mention is that some...
July 26, 2007
I'd Have Preffered A Couple Of Hail Marys
John Murtha threatened to kill all of Mike Rogers' earmarks after the Michigan Republican challenged one of the Pork King's own. Because Murtha was foolish enough to issue that threat openly on the House floor, Rogers filed a resolution on the floor rebuking Murtha for what amounted to a threat of extortion. Murtha apologized -- and now he has spent our money on his penance: The powerful Democrat, who chairs the appropriations subcommittee that doles out defense spending, eventually apologized for his bad behavior in a letter to Rogers. But Murtha's decision to grant Rogers three of the 10 projects he requested is the ultimate sign of benevolence. According to the measure that members considered Wednesday, Murtha set aside money for Lowery Computer Products in Brighton, Mich., to test an advanced security system for military bases, money for Michigan State University to test composite materials, and money for a cold-weather...
July 30, 2007
Senate Ethics Bill Falls Short
The Senate has agreed on the language of its ethics bill, and the 107-page behemoth will move to the floor shortly. According to sources on Capitol Hill, the bill signals a retreat on earmark reform in several ways. Section 521 has had the following changes made since its initial adoption in January: 1. The new bill allows the Majority Leader, not the Senate parliamentarian, to unilaterally decide whether or not a bill or conference report complies with the earmark disclosure requirements. In other words, Harry Reid makes the decision whether legislation he brings to the floor complies with the new standard. How ... convenient. 2. The new bill eliminates the requirement that earmark lists be searchable. It's easier to hide in a crowd, isn't it? 3. The original version prohibited the inclusion of earmarks that benefitted its sponsor Now that prohibition has been restricted to earmarks that only benefit its...
July 31, 2007
Are They Looking For Frozen Pork?
The FBI and the IRS raided the newly-renovated home of Senator Ted Stevens in Alaska, looking for evidence of political corruption in an investigation that has already corralled his son and one of his closest political backers. Bill Allen, the CEO of oil-services firm VECO, got convicted of bribing state legislators earlier this year, and now the FBI and IRS want to see what Allen may have given the Republican Senator in exchange for millions of contracts in earmarks: Agents from the FBI and the Internal Revenue Service raided the Alaska home of Sen. Ted Stevens (R) yesterday as part of a broad federal investigation of political corruption in the state that has also swept up his son and one of his closest financial backers, officials said. Stevens, the longest-serving Republican senator in history, is under scrutiny from the Justice Department for his ties to an Alaska energy services company,...
Senate GOP Caucus Caving On Earmarks?
The British newspaper The Guardian reports that the watered-down version of ethics reform will apparently get Republican backing after all in the Senate. Despite removing requirements for certification by chamber parliamentarians for earmark compliance, the elimination of searchability, and the restriction of the definition of personal benefit to an impossibility for enforcement, the Minority Leader and the Republican Whip both indicated that they would press the caucus to pass the bill: Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., said he will fight the bill because it ``guts key earmark reforms.'' He noted that, unlike a previously adopted version, it would allow the majority party's leaders - not the Senate parliamentarian- to rule on whether earmark disclosure requirements have been met in bills reaching the Senate floor. Dissident senators would not be able to challenge the ruling, but they could try to strike an unreported earmark by offering an amendment. Senate Minority Whip Trent...
August 2, 2007
To Dream The Impossible Dream
The Senate takes up ethics reform on the floor this morning, and given the overwhelming vote in the House yesterday, it seems certain to pass. The roll-call vote will take place this afternoon: The Senate debated Thursday whether to make lawmakers disclose more about their efforts to fund pet projects and raise money from lobbyists, a move that reform groups say is overdue. Senate leaders said they hoped to win a showdown vote later in the day to end debate and ready the bill for final passage. A two-thirds majority is needed to end debate because the bill would change Senate rules, but a simple majority would suffice on final passage. The measure "is the most sweeping reform bill since Watergate," Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said as the debate began Thursday morning. That may be damning with faint praise. It had real teeth in its earlier version, especially on earmarks,...
August 3, 2007
King Of Pork Wins Again
The undisputed king of pork in the House has another championship trophy for his wall. Despite a game effort by Rep. Bill Young (R-FL), who actually got more earmarks into the upcoming defense appropriation bill, John Murtha outscored him on total dollars spent on protecting his incumbency. The King spent $150 million of our money on his pet projects: Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense panel, has secured the most earmarked dollars in the 2008 military spending bill, followed closely by the panel’s ranking member Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.). Even though Young secured 52 earmarks, worth $117.2 million — and co-sponsored at least $27 million worth of others — Murtha’s 48 earmarks amount to a total of $150.5 million, according to a database compiled by the watchdog organization Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS). The House is expected to take up the $459.6 billion defense appropriations bill...
August 9, 2007
The 2007 RePork Card
As fascinating as Henry "Goatsie" Reynolds is, we should get back to actual policy -- and thankfully, the Club for Growth has given us a good reason to do so. Earlier today, they released their RePork Card for Congress, evaluating the members based on their votes on anti-pork legislation. Overall, both parties failed, but one failed spectacularly. Want to guess which one? Even though the Democratic majority vowed to return Congress to a path of fiscal responsibility, the 2008 appropriations bills were stuffed with wasteful pork projects. While Representatives John Campbell, Jeff Flake, Jeb Hensarling, Scott Garrett, and David Obey (1 amendment) offered 50 amendments to strip outrageous pork projects from the appropriations bills, only one amendment, offered by Rep. Jeff Flake, passed. The Club for Growth has compiled a RePORK Card of all members' votes on all 50 anti-pork amendments (see below). "Taxpayers have a right to know which...
August 12, 2007
Hidden Earmarks A Hallmark Of The 110th
When Democrats campaigned in the 2006 midterm elections, they promised to reform the pork-barrel practices of previous Congresses once they took control. They have certainly changed the process, but not in the manner they promised. Instead, for the second time this session, they have buried their earmarks and made accountability nearly impossible while using federal dollars to bolster their incumbencies (via Power Line): Despite promises by Congress to end the secrecy of earmarks and other pet projects, the House of Representatives has quietly funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to specific hospitals and health care providers under a bill passed this month to help low-income children. Instead of naming the hospitals, the bill describes them in cryptic terms, so that identifying a beneficiary is like solving a riddle. Most of the provisions were added to the bill at the request of Democratic lawmakers. One hospital, Bay Area Medical Center, sits...
August 13, 2007
Time For A Change
The Republicans lost control of the House and Senate for the first time in twelve years in the last midterm elections. Voters sent the message in 2006 that massive spending increases and political corruption would not be tolerated. We thought that politicians would have listened to that message. Robert Novak, in his column today, explains that neither party's leadership has heard. Democrats need to clean their own house. At Heading Right, I call for Republicans to do the same. We cannot sit back and let Jeff Flake and John Campbell do all of the heavy lifting on porkbusting while GOP leadership in the House supports John Murtha and the Democrats on earmarking. If Republicans want to stand for limited government, fiscal responsibility, and clean public service, then they have to start producing leaders who fight for those principles rather than hypocritically using federal power to protect their own personal interests....
August 14, 2007
Why The Ethics Bill Is A Joke (Update: Why Bush Won't Veto It)
How bad is the ethics bill that the Democrats just pushed through Congress? Even lobbyists have started to point out its loopholes to the Washington Post. Under the new rules, Representatives and Senators will no longer be able to accept free meals -- unless the lobbyist also provides money for their re-election at the meal. No, I'm not kidding: Activists on the reform side of the lobbying debate have been celebrating that Congress finally got around to passing an ethics bill. The question is: Should voters celebrate as well? Paul A. Miller, a former president of the American League of Lobbyists, thinks the hoorahs should be muted, and he has a point. The legislation bars lobbyists from providing meals and gifts to lawmakers, a provision long sought by the advocates of change as a way to keep well-heeled interests from buying their way into the hearts of decision-makers. But Miller...
August 15, 2007
No Cold Turkey On Alaskan Pork
The Hill reports that Alaskans have begun to push back against their pork kings, Senator Ted Stevens and Rep. Don Young, both Republicans. Young ironically holds an annual pig roast every summer as a fundraiser, and this year porkbusting picketers turned out in large numbers to protest their abuse of the earmarking process and resulting corruption allegations. That may still not convince enough Alaskans to toss them from office, though, as Stevens and Young have spread the addiction to sufficient numbers of constituents: About 75 protesters, crying “Oink! Oink!” and “FBI! FBI!” gave Young, Alaska’s two senators and their supporters a shockingly poor reception at last week’s fundraiser. When Young held a public picnic on Monday, the protesters were back, wearing swine masks and waving angry signs. More than 3,600 miles from the Capitol, one thing is clear: Young and Sen. Ted Stevens (R) are in political as well as...
August 24, 2007
Pulled Pork In Placer County
The Club for Growth's RePork Card has had its first success. Placer County GOP chair Ken Campbell has announced that he will no longer endorse Rep. John Doolittle, the longtime Republican appropriator who scored a whopping 2% on anti-pork voting: Former Placer County Republican Party chairman Ken Campbell, a longtime financial backer of Rep. John Doolittle, said Friday that he is withdrawing his support of the nine-term Roseville Republican because he has betrayed his conservative roots. Campbell based his conclusion on a recent Club for Growth report on votes this year on 2008 spending bills to eliminate "wasteful pork projects." Doolittle scored just 2 percent, the average score for Democrats and well under the Republican average of 43 percent. Campbell has been a longtime supporter of Doolittle, with about $10,000 in political contributions to his reelection in the last decade. The most recent contribution was $400 in May. Doolittle has...
September 10, 2007
The Ethics Bill That Hides Dishonesty
What should President Bush do with an ethics reform that leaves the American people in a worse position to discover and fight pork-barrel spending? Robert Novak notes the dilemma in which Bush finds himself as Congress reconvenes. Can he afford to veto their vaunted new ethics bill -- and can he affort not to veto it? The final version of the widely celebrated ethics bill, approved by overwhelming margins in both the House and Senate a month ago, finally and quietly made its way last week from Capitol Hill to the White House. It surely will soon be signed into law by President Bush. What only a handful of leaders and insiders realize is that this measure, avowedly dedicated to transparency, actually makes it easier for the Senate to pass pet projects without the public -- or many senators -- being aware of it. Until now, one or two senators...
September 13, 2007
Pork, The Cholesterol Of Infrastructure
Remember when people acted outraged after the collapse of the St. Anthony Bridge in Minneapolis because of the neglect of American infrastructure? We don't spend enough on maintaining what our grandparents bequeathed us, as some poetically put it. Others offered more prosaic and predictable rants aimed at people who oppose tax increases; one Minneapolis crank blamed the Taxpayers League for the thirteen deaths. Had we taken more money from the people, they claimed, the bridge would have received proper maintenance and never would have collapsed, even though no one knows to this day what initiated the disaster. Before we start blaming a lack of money, though, let's take a look at the amount of wasted funds that this Congress approved even after the bridge collapsed: Six weeks after a fatal Minneapolis bridge collapse prompted criticism of federal spending priorities, the Senate approved a transportation and housing bill Wednesday containing at...
September 25, 2007
Bringing The Power Of The Internet To Earmark Research
The Sunlight Foundation has launched its new site designed to root out pork-barrel spending and hold lawmakers accountable for their earmarking. Earmark Watch does much more than just list earmarks -- it gives users the power to do their own research and report earmarks. The system also allows users to comment on earmarks in order to get more information into the hands of its visitors. It provides a handy tool for searching through the database. For instance, I did a search on all earmarks in the House Defense appropriation currently wending its way to the floor to find all Minnesota earmarks. The system reports 11 earmarks, totalling over $26 million, that will be spent in our state. Almost a quarter of that comes from two earmarks to Phygen, which requires $3 million each on plasma sterilizers and ultra-endurance coating. Looking at Open Secrets, Phygen doesn't contribute to any of the...
September 26, 2007
Democratic Fade On Ethics Slowly Gaining Notice
The Trojan Horse ethics bill that the Senate Democrats have offered has slowly started to gain the attention of the mainstream news media. Yesterday, ABC joined the party as the Blotter noticed that the public disclosure of earmarking has gone MIA from the Democrats' latest version of the bill (via CapQ reader Stoo): When no one was looking, someone cut a hole out of the Democrats' much-hyped ethics bill. A watchdog group which caught it suspects the Democrats of undermining their own effort to clean up Capitol Hill. Dubbed "the biggest reform effort in a generation" by its sponsor, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007 represented the Democrats' plan "to change the way Washington works." ... The victim of the edit: a section that would boost public disclosure of earmarking. As it was approved by the Senate, the 2007 ethics bill required...
October 17, 2007
I Thought They Hated Pigs At Woodstock
Ah, Woodstock. It’s the touchstone for the Baby Boomer generation, where hundreds of thousands gathered at the height of the counterculture movement to celebrate their independence from the Establishment. The festival had everything — sex, drugs, rock & roll … and pork? At Heading Right, I point out that the 60s was supposed to be about opposing the Establishment, not getting subsidies from it. Apparently not. The earmarked funds for this project go to a billionaire whose funding this vanity project, and the funds come out of the Education budget. That means the money goes to a billionaire (providing money so he doesn't have to do so) rather than children and classrooms. And in the meantime, the same billionaire has sent tens of thousands of dollars to Hillary Clinton, Chuck Schumer, and the DSCC, sometimes within days of receiving the earmarks. This must have been what the Sixties were all...
Harkin's Earmark For La Raza
Senator Tom Harkin must believe that Iowans have a vested interest in the agenda of the National Council of La Raza. The group, which has positioned itself on the forefront of the blanket amnesty approach to immigration and opposed to efforts to enforce the border, will get a nice $500,000 grant from Harkin, a part of the 2008 HHS appropriations bill that still hasn't found its way to the floor of the Democratic-controlled Senate. The grant funds "technical assistance on Hispanic workforce issues including capacity building. Language barriers, and health care job training”, a generic description that means anything La Raza wants it to mean. This looks like a bargain for La Raza. Its officers only contributed $1500 to Harkin's last campaign, and they got a half-million dollar grant in return. That's a 30-fold return on investment, an excellent choice of politicians in the free market of earmarking and backscratching....
October 18, 2007
Monument To Me Amendment Today
In the world of pork-barrel politics, some porkers are pikers -- compared to Charlie Rangel. Charles Rangel has built himself a name in his long years representing Harlem in Congress — and now he wants to put that name on a few buildings at taxpayer expense. Rangel has proposed earmarks to fund the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service, the Rangel Conference Center, and the Charles Rangel Library at CCNY, which amount to $2 million in self-aggrandizement. The ultimate in vanity projects might get torpedoed today by a Senate amendment, if Jim DeMint gets his way. At Heading Right, I note that DeMint will likely get a vote on an amendment today that would strip the $2 million in earmarks for Charlie's "Monument to Me". Passage of the amendment would send a message to Congress that our tax money is not meant for the self-aggrandizement of the public servants...
October 19, 2007
Batting .500 On Pork
Porkbusters had a rare day yesterday, winning a vote to strip pork from an upcoming bill while losing another. Normally members of Congress close ranks to protect each other's pork from amendments to defund them, but even collegiality couldn't save the brown acid of the Woodstock Museum earmark: Community leaders in upstate New York are building a $100 million museum there and sought money from the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) attempted to defend the earmark Thursday, but he failed, surprising even some critics of the project. The Senate first rejected a motion to table the amendment, 42-52, shifting the $1 million earmark into the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant program. Five Democrats — Evan Bayh of Indiana, Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, Claire McCaskill of Missouri and Jim Webb of Virginia — joined the entire Senate...
October 21, 2007
Will: No Line-Item Veto
George Will rides to Rudy Giuliani's defense on the line-item veto issue, and in fact rides so hard he passes Rudy at full gallop. Giuliani favors a Constitutional amendment to grant the President the power to strike individual spending items from legislation, but Will argues against pursuing it at all: Forty-three governors have, and most presidents have coveted, the power to have something other than an all-or-nothing choice when presented with appropriations bills. This did not matter in 1789, when the only appropriations bill passed by the First Congress could have been typed double-space on a single sheet of paper. But 199 years later, President Ronald Reagan displayed a 43-pound, 3,296-page bill as an argument for a line-item veto. Today's gargantuan government, its 10 thumbs into everything, routinely generates elephantine appropriations bills. But were a president empowered to cancel provisions of legislation, what he would be doing would be indistinguishable...
October 23, 2007
Senate Picks Pork Over Kids
The Senate just voted 68-26 to kill the amendment offered by Senator Tom Coburn that would have redirected earmarks in the Labor/HHS/Education appropriation to funding health care for children instead. The failure of the Senate to pass Amendment 3358 today shows a large disconnect between the rhetoric of the majority in Congress and their actual priorities. After castigating the Bush administration for vetoing a massive expansion of the S-CHIP program to middle-class families who largely don't need it, two-thirds of the Senate seems more interested in their own pork than in America's children. Don't expect this to get much attention from the American media. However, they will continue to report on efforts by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to contrast the S-CHIP expansion veto to war funding, as the Post reported today in its article on Bush's new supplemental funding request for the war. Democrats accuse the President of...
October 24, 2007
Earmarks Or Ear Infections?
Yesterday's vote to kill Senator Tom Coburn's amendment caught the notice of Dana Milbank. He details the efforts of Coburn's colleagues to drown out his speech yesterday in a torrent of babble -- the same kind of babble we hear when they promise to end pork-barrel spending and clean up government. The amendment, which would have used all of the earmark spending in the Labor/HHS/Education appopriation for children's health insurance, forced a difficult choice on the Senate, as Coburn remarked: "It seems to me the American public might want to ask why are you earmarking special money for special projects when you have a chance to make sure it will go towards children and really solving the problem?" Coburn taunted. "So this is going to be a tough vote. Kids versus my political career. Kids versus my political power. Kids versus my political earmarks. We're going to see. We're going...
Flying Junkets Through The Swamp
The new Democratic leadership in Congress promised to drain the swamp once they took control after the 2006 elections. They campaigned on the Jack Abramoff scandal and promised to reform government to keep lobbyists from cozying up to legislators. However, USA Today has discovered that the relationship has just grown cozier since January: Despite new House travel restrictions, lawmakers accepted free trips worth nearly $1.9 million during the first eight months of this year — more than in all of 2006, records show. ... Stung by scandals and worried about re-election, lawmakers last year drastically cut the amount of privately funded travel they took to $1.7 million, according to CQ MoneyLine, a non-partisan group. Congress also took steps to eliminate luxury trips with lobbyists, restricting — not banning — travel paid by outside groups. The House enacted travel rules in March; similar restrictions are scheduled to take effect in the...
October 29, 2007
Corporate Hippies Need Federal Funding
The Boston Globe tries explaining to the rest of the nation that the Woodstock Museum, which John McCain has adopted as his primary Hillary Clinton target, isn't the hippie hangout that people believe. It created jobs, allowed for music to remain at Max Yazgur's farm, and helped a county economy recover from recession. However, nowhere in this article does anyone explain why the project should receive federal funds: The emerald hill at Yasgur's Farm is quiet now, the electrified sounds of Jimi Hendrix and other performers from the Woodstock concert of 1969 long since faded. But at the hillcrest rises an extraordinary sight: a $100 million Tanglewood-style concert pavilion and an adjoining museum that soon will tell the story of the 1960s with exhibits such as "The Hippies" and "Three Days of Peace and Music." .... So Gerry's nonprofit family foundation kicked in nearly $85 million for the facility, which...
Guest Post: Senator Jim DeMint On Earmark Reform
Occasionally, Captain's Quarters features guest posts from our elected officials on issues of high interests to the readers of this blog. Today I welcome Senator Jim DeMint on the issue of earmark reform. Join the Fight to Reform Earmarks By Sen. Jim DeMint In 1987, Ronald Reagan vetoed a bill that had 121 earmarks, saying "I haven't seen this much lard since I handed out blue ribbons at the Iowa State Fair." By 2005, this corrupting system exploded as we stuffed 13,997 wasteful earmarks into spending bills, including the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska and the Teapot Museum in North Carolina. In fact, just since 2000, Congress has spent more than $170 BILLION of your tax dollars on these pork barrel projects. Today Democrats rule Congress, Republicans have quit acting like Republicans, wasteful spending has become the norm, and our nation's capital has become a place where it seems that...
October 30, 2007
We Built This City On Pork And Bull
The Wall Street Journal either exposes John Murtha once again as a manipulative and corrupt public official or the champion of those lucky enough to live in his district. King Jack of Pork hasn't slowed down a bit, and in fact has picked up steam since the Democrats came into power. Even with most of the budget bills still vaporware, the unrivaled earmarker already has over $190 million coming back home, more than $30 million ahead of his nearest competition: In the massive 2008 military-spending bill now before Congress -- which could go to a House-Senate conference as soon as Thursday -- Mr. Murtha has steered more taxpayer funds to his congressional district than any other member. The Democratic lawmaker is chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, which will oversee more than $459 billion in military spending this year. Johnstown's good fortune has come at the expense of...
A Real Fishing Expedition
The FBI has shifted its investigation into Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), looking at legislative activity sponsored by the Alaskan that may have benefitted his son. They have focused on a number of earmarks that Stevens requested that served Alaska's fishing industry, which returned the favor by hiring Ben Stevens as a consultant. In fact, the younger Stevens sold himself as a conduit for federal pork: Federal authorities investigating Sen. Ted Stevens are trolling the Alaska fishing industry for evidence of whether the powerful Republican pushed seafood legislation that benefited his lobbyist son. So far, the most public aspect of the investigation was the FBI raid on Stevens' home in July, with agents seeking evidence of the senator's relationship with a corrupt Alaska oil contractor. But authorities have also quietly amassed evidence about fishing. ... But Victor Smith, a fisherman and critic of Ben Stevens, gave the FBI a taped phone...
October 31, 2007
Getting Screwed Through Abstinence
What is it about Pennsylvania politicians and pork? Yesterday, we covered the ongoing story of John Murtha, King of Pork. Today, the Politico reveals that Arlen Specter wants pork for virginity, screwing taxpayers while promoting abstinence: The senator, who supports abortion rights, is turning the state into the abstinence-earmark capital of the country, directing more than $8 million into dozens of programs and, in the process, arching more than a few eyebrows. He’s done it again this year, setting aside $1 million for an Erie women’s center that provides “abortion recovery” counseling, a community group once chaired by a late supporter and 23 other school districts, hospitals and local organizations. No other member of Congress earmarks money for abstinence education. The reason Specter does it offers insight into the political machinations behind — and the abiding allure of — the narrow-interest spending requests maligned by fiscal watchdogs but desired as...
November 2, 2007
The Earmark Incubator
Pork-barrel politics hits the front page of the Washington Post today, with a look at what Jeff Flake once called the "earmark incubator", Concurrent Technologies. The defense contractor that John Murtha helped birth and keeps well fed turns out to be a charity case -- a real charity case, recognized as one by the IRS. Its tax-exempt status turns out to be only one of the oddities surrounding this pork warehouse: Behind the rise of Concurrent is Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's defense subcommittee, who helped arrange funding to launch the organization in 1988. Murtha has since arranged millions of dollars more in directed congressional appropriations called earmarks. Now Concurrent has nearly $250 million in annual revenue and 1,500 employees. Concurrent is a prime example of how to marry entrepreneurial savvy, influence on Capitol Hill and arcane procurement rules to create budget magnets in...
Vetoing The Flood Of Pork
President Bush just added another resident to Vetoland, this resident being the water projects bill that got saturated with pork-barrel projects in conference. Despite having enough votes to override his veto, Bush sent the bill back as a protest against its escalating earmarks: An increasingly confrontational President Bush on Friday vetoed a bill authorizing hundreds of popular water projects even though lawmakers can count enough votes to override him. In doing so, Bush brushed aside significant objections from Capitol Hill, even from Republicans, in thwarting legislation that provides projects for a host of aims, including those that would repair hurricane damage, restore wetlands and prevent flooding in communities across the nation. ... The $23 billion water bill passed in both chambers of Congress by well more than the two-thirds majority needed to vacate a veto and make the bill law. Bush objected to the $9 billion in projects added during...
November 4, 2007
Porking Up Defense In A Time Of War
Republicans and Democrats alike share one common impulse in Congress: to pork up any appropriation that exits the legislature. One might think that this impulse would get diminished in a time of war, especially regarding defense appropriations. Instead, the opportunity to earmark for their own political purposes grows more attractive given the vital nature of the underlying appropriation. This year, over $3 billion in pork will get attached to the defense appropriation bill representing 1,337 separate earmarks -- and that's just in the House version: Even though members of Congress cut back their pork barrel spending this year, House lawmakers still tacked on to the military appropriations bill $1.8 billion to pay 580 private companies for projects the Pentagon did not request. Twenty-one members were responsible for about $1 billion in earmarks, or financing for pet projects, according to data lawmakers were required to disclose for the first time this...
November 5, 2007
The Senate RePork Card
The Club for Growth has published its RePork Card for the Senate, three months after doing the same for the House. Certain similarities exist between the two lists, such as the heavy tilt towards Republicans at the top end of the list, as well as the bipartisan level of failing grades for this assessment. It also features a reversal of the old 80/20 rule, where 80% of the problem exists in 20% of the population. In this case, 80% of the solution is found in only 20% of the population. Here are the four Senators who score 100% on anti-pork initiatives in the Senate this year: Coburn (R-OK) 100% 15 / 15 DeMint (R-SC) 100% 13 / 13 Burr (R-NC) 100% 15 / 15 McCain (R-AZ) 100% 2 / 2 John McCain missed a lot of votes because of his campaign schedule, but he's been consistently excellent on pork-barrel reform....
November 6, 2007
The Pork Airlift Of 2007 Has Begun
Recall when Democrats insisted that they had cleaned up Congress with their ethics bills this session? The “Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007”, the first bill considered by the upper chamber in the 110th Congress, specifically prohibited the practice of "airdropping" earmarks into legislation. An airdropped earmark is one that suddenly appears in the conference report between the two chambers when it appears in neither the House nor the Senate version prior to the conference. The Pork Airlift has begun, as defiant as the brave airlift in postwar Berlin that kept the residents of the free city alive. This time, it just keeps the power of porkmeisters from declining. Sources on the Hill have a list of airdropped earmarks and their sponsors: 1. South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD for the Thomas Daschle Center for Public Service and Representative Democracy Sponsor: Byrd, Reid, Johnson, Harkin Amount: $1,000,000 2...
November 9, 2007
All Hail The Pork Queen
Guess which presidential candidate has the temerity to talk fiscal responsibility while outstripping the other candidates in pork-barrel spending? It turns out the Woodstock museum was only the headline act in a long concert of earmarking for Hillary Clinton. Not only does she lead the Senate delegation in this cycle's presidential race, but despite her junior status, she earmarked more than five times more money than her nearest competitor: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) has won tens of millions of dollars more in federal earmarks this year than her rivals for the Democratic presidential nomination, even though two of them have significantly more Senate seniority. A review of the first three appropriations conference reports finished by Senate and House negotiators shows that Clinton has successfully requested at least $530 million worth of projects. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), Clinton’s chief rival for the nomination, has so far won $40.6 million in...
November 12, 2007
Sheep? Chickens? At Least They're Not Pigs
Harry Reid lost big last weekend on his budget extortion, and he lashed out in response to those who undermined his efforts to push pork through the White House in this session’s budget. Calling 19 Republicans “sheep and chickens”, Reid had to acknowledge that his attempts to extort a signature through combining appropriations to avoid vetoes had come to naught. Instead, the bloated Labor/HHS bill will likely see a veto, and the Democrats can’t override it. At Heading Right, I note that the epithets "sheep" and "chickens" don't mean much when coming from porkers. Democrats have let Republicans off the hook for fiscal irresponsibility with their pork-protection rackets. Will the GOP be smart enough to return to its roots of fiscal responsibility and limited government now, or will the same chickens who came to roost in 2006 return in 2008?...
November 13, 2007
Vetoes Add Up Almost As Fast As The Pork
George Bush issued another veto of an appropriation bill this morning, sending Labor/HHS funding back to Congress for overspending. Democrats howled over the veto, while Bush approved the defense spending bill: President Bush, escalating his budget battle with Congress, on Tuesday vetoed a spending measure for health and education programs prized by congressional Democrats. He also signed a big increase in the Pentagon's non-war budget although the White House complained it contained "some unnecessary spending." The president's action was announced on Air Force One as Bush flew to New Albany, Ind., on the Ohio River across from Louisville, Ky., for a speech criticizing the Democratic-led Congress on its budget priorities. The Labor/HHS bill had over 2,000 earmarks, helping to push its budget more than $10 billion over that requested by the White House. Among those earmarks were $500,000 to the National Council of La Raza, over $10 million for an...
November 14, 2007
Earmarks: 'Everyone's Business'
The Washington Post shines some light on the efforts by porkbusters to shine their own light on earmarks in appropriations bills. Elizabeth Williamson focuses on earmarks in the recently-signed defense appropriation, and reports on the new websites that help vet the pork and its beneficiaries: Who put a million dollars for an "Extended Cold Weather Clothing System" into the 2008 defense spending bill President Bush signed yesterday? The item is one of thousands that can be found on EarmarkWatch.org, a new Web site that enlists voters' help monitoring congressional spending. The site supplies users with the tools they need to research earmarks and, creators say, "a forum for lively debate over what constitutes a worthwhile expenditure of federal funds -- which earmarks meet pressing needs, which are political favors, and which are pure pork." It took three clicks to turn up four lawmakers behind the hand-protection earmark yesterday: Democratic Reps....
November 16, 2007
Democrats Lose Another Veto Challenge
The Democrats thought they had turned the corner in the battle against George Bush when they overturned his veto on the pork-filled water projects bill last week. Yesterday they discovered that the White House has plenty of fight left as the House could not override his veto on the proked up Labor/HHS funding appropriation. They fell almost twenty votes short, and now must rework the bill to gain enough strength to pass it: House Democrats were unable to override President Bush's veto of a key domestic spending bill yesterday, forcing the party back to the drawing board on some of its most important domestic initiatives, including early-childhood education and heating-bill payments for the elderly. With a vote of 277 to 141, Democrats lost their bid to defy Bush's veto of the labor, health and education bill. The vote was a setback for the Democratic social agenda championed by House Speaker...
November 20, 2007
Chenega -- Governmentese For 'Hose The Taxpayer'
Another no-bid government contract, another half-billion dollars thrown down the hole … another Alaska story? It seems so on the surface, but as with many pork pulls, it gets spread around quickly. The Department of Homeland Security now admits it made a mistake in assigning a no-bid federal contract to Chenega Technologies for radiation-detection equipment at security checkpoints on the basis of disadvantaged ownership for Alaskan tribes, an effort pioneered by Hall of Fame porker Senator Ted Stevens. However, Stevens hardly is the only member of Congress benefiting from Chenega’s sweetheart deals. At Heading Right, I take a deeper look into Chenega and its connections in Washington. Chenega execs have an interesting pattern of contributions, one that calls into question its supposed Alaskan Native status. It also shows that no-bid contracts at Chenega have not been limited to this one award -- and readers may be surprised at the amount...
November 22, 2007
Why Pork Is DC's Favorite White Meat
When we talk about white meat on Thanksgiving, most picture a finely roasted turkey, carved thin, with delicious gravy and trimmings. In the context of federal government, however, the white meat refers to pork, which is never cut thin but dropped thickly onto the backs of taxpayers. Why white meat? As our friend Jazz Shaw reminds us, it's both red and blue and the favorite meal of Congressmen of both parties. Today's Washington Post demonstrates that Republicans still have not quite learned their lesson from 2006: House Republican Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) roundly assailed the "Democrats' Labor-H Spending Nightmare" in a news release that preceded Bush's veto of the labor, health and human services and education spending bill last week. Blunt decried the "spending spree" hidden in the transportation, housing and urban development bill. House Republican Conference Chairman Adam H. Putnam (R-Fla.) dismissed the now-vetoed labor, health and education bill...
December 10, 2007
Paygo: Carnival Huckster Of Fiscal Discipline
The Democrats have insisted that the "paygo" rules enforce fiscal discipline, except when they don't. They gave up on paygo when they voted for the AMT patch that will save middle-class taxpayers from a $50 billion Congressional mistake. The Wall Street Journal explains that paygo never really represented fiscal responsibility, but instead presented Democrats with a fig leaf for taxation. Why so? It turns out that paygo doesn't apply to an overwhelming majority of the federal budget: domestic spending and entitlements. At Heading Right, I point out that the rules only restrict the most Constitutionally legitimate parts of the federal budget while allowing the greatest amount of leeway for the priorities of the Democratic Party. Until paygo applies to the entire federal budget, it's nothing more than a three-card Monty i terms of fiscal discipline. No wonder the Democrats gave it up so easily....
Steny Hoyer For Vice President!
If Hillary Clinton can run on the Pork ticket, Steny Hoyer makes a fine running mate. The Washington Post reports that Hoyer made the Top Ten Porkers List for 2008, based on an analysis of funding requests pending for next year's budget. And, like Hillary, Hoyer does not forget his contributors when it comes to spreading out the taxpayer dollars: Even as House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer has joined in steps to clean up pork-barrel spending, the Maryland congressman has tucked $96 million worth of pet projects into next year's federal budget, including $450,000 for a campaign donor's foundation. Hoyer (D) is one of the top 10 earmarkers in the House for 2008, based on budget requests in bills so far, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, an independent watchdog group. ... Consider the $450,000 that Hoyer inserted into a 2008 education spending bill for the California-based InTune Foundation...
The Price Of Pork Refusal
You can almost write the headlines yourself: "Congressman Forgoes Pork, Women And Minorities Hardest Hit". The Star Tribune tries that on John Kline, the Republican representing Minnesota's Second Congressional District -- my own, in fact. They manage to make a virtue look like a vice in noting his conversion to anti-pork activism, and line up a few complainers to make the point (via True North): As Congress lurches toward a budget showdown before Christmas, Minnesota Rep. John Kline is at the center of an ideological food fight over the role of pork-barrel "earmarks." The Lakeville Republican calls the system of special funding for pet projects a "corrupting" influence in Congress, and says he won't take any. That has left officials in his rapidly growing suburban district wanting federal dollars to complete projects from the Cedar Avenue Transitway to the expansion of Hwy. 212 in Carver County. While some appreciate the...
December 11, 2007
Democrats Fight For The Right To Pork
Our neighbor, Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, has demanded that the White House start approving some Congressional pork if he wants funding for Iraq. Senator Robert Byrd believes fiscal responsibility means increasing domestic spending if the nation has to spend more money on defense and foreign aid in a time of war. Both represent the Democratic petulance regarding the White House demand for a stripped-down omnibus bill: A Democratic deal to give President Bush some war funding in exchange for additional domestic spending appeared to collapse last night after House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey (D-Wis.) accused Republicans of bargaining in bad faith. Instead, Obey said he will push a huge spending bill that would hew to the president's spending limit by stripping it of all lawmakers' pet projects, as well as most of the Bush administration's top priorities. It would also contain no money for the wars in...
December 13, 2007
George Bush, Mr. Relevant
George Bush should send nice Christmas cards to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. The pair have done more for Bush's reputation that the three Republican-controlled Congresses that preceded the 110th. The Democratic leadership have made George Bush more relevant and more Republican than ever before -- and their latest surrender on the budget underscores it: House Democratic leaders yesterday agreed to meet President Bush's bottom-line spending limit on a sprawling, half-trillion-dollar domestic spending bill, dropping their demands for as much as $22 billion in additional spending but vowing to shift funds from the president's priorities to theirs. The final legislation, still under negotiation, will be shorn of funding for the war in Iraq when it reaches the House floor, possibly on Friday. But Democratic leadership aides concede that the Senate will probably add those funds. A proposal to strip the bill of spending provisions for lawmakers' home districts was shelved...
Era Of Open Government Commencing
The long-awaited opening of the federal budget to Internet researchers has arrived. The new website envisioned and enabled by the Coburn-Obama Act in 2006 has officially launched at USAspending.gov, offered by the government and designed by OMB Watch. The Washington Post reports on the creation of the site: Robert Shea is a Republican insider with a head for business and a yen for federal program performance standards. Gary Bass is a government watchdog with a mean bite who wants openness and knows how to get it. Official antagonists, political opposites, brought together by a wild, crazy idea: federal budget transparency. Online and searchable. Free for the asking. Today, the White House budget office officially launches USASpending.gov, a Web site that shows taxpayers where their dollars go and which legislators, contractors and regions get the most. The site was created by Shea, associate director of the Office of Management and Budget....
December 17, 2007
Omnibus Follies
As I have written before, omnibus spending bills give Congress a lot of power to create mischief and hide corruption. These appropriations roll up all spending authorizations into a single spending bill, creating fragile alliances that these days rely more on pork than real consensus on priorities. This approach makes it difficult for the White House to use its veto without shutting down vital portions of the federal government, a type of extortion that usually means that Congress has hidden its own selfish interests in this poison pill. According to Senator Jim DeMint, today's omnibus bill is exactly like your father's: • Earmarks: Instead of reducing the number of pork projects in the federal budget, the bill drives the number of earmarks up from last year. The bill contains over 8,000 earmarks, bringing the total for 2008 up to over 10,000 earmarks compared to just 2,658 in 2007. • Spending...
December 18, 2007
As Long As The Axe Has His Name On It
Have the Senate Democrats decided to dump their most egregious porker from his leadership position? The Politico reports this morning that Robert Byrd may get pressured to leave his position as chair of the Appropriations committee, a move that could call into question his ability to function at all in the Senate. Pork has nothing to do with this move: A group of Senate Democrats has begun quietly exploring ways to replace the venerable Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) as chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, believing he’s no longer physically up to the job, according to Democratic senators and leadership aides familiar with the discussions. Under one scenario being circulated in Democratic circles, the 90-year-old Byrd would be named “chairman emeritus,” and Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) would become “acting chairwoman” for the remainder of the 110th Congress. Democratic insiders caution, though, that no decision has been made. But there...
December 19, 2007
Bush Gets War Funding, Congress Gets Pork
Voters will have to determine whether the trade is worth it, but the 2008 budget finally passed Congress in an omnibus bill that will make its way down Pennsylvania Avenue on pork grease. The spending bill contains 9,000 earmarks, hundreds of which violated the supposed ethics reforms by getting airdropped in conference. Still, the bill represents at least two stunning victories for the White House and yet another surrender on the war by Democrats: The Senate last night approved a $555 billion omnibus spending bill to fund the federal government for the rest of the fiscal year, shortly after bowing to President Bush's demand for $70 billion in unrestricted funds for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Democrats had vowed only weeks ago to withhold any Iraq-specific money unless strict timelines for troop withdrawal were established, but they instead chose, on a 70 to 25 vote, to remove what appeared...
December 21, 2007
Will Bush Cancel Congress' Christmas? (Bumped)
The omnibus spending bill made its way down Pennsylvania Avenue this week, and it could have slid all the way down on the grease it contains from over 9,000 earmarks. In remarks yesterday, George Bush warned that his budget director will look at ways to eliminate wasteful spending, and thanks to Congressional dishonesty, he may have a way to do it: The White House threatened yesterday to cancel thousands of pet projects that Congress inserted into a massive spending bill before leaving town this week, a move that could provoke a fierce battle with lawmakers in both parties who jealously guard their ability to steer money to favored purposes. At an end-of-the-year news conference, President Bush chastised Democratic leaders for failing to live up to their campaign promise to curb so-called earmarks and said he has ordered his budget director "to review options for dealing with the wasteful spending in...
December 24, 2007
Bush Mulling Over The Earmark Question
George Bush will seriously consider the popular request of an executive order banning the funding of non-legislative earmarks by federal agencies, the Wall Street Journal notes in an editorial today. While some question whether the move will actually save any money, and even some Republicans question whether antagonizing Congress will be worth it, the Journal says that the White House can only benefit from such an action: Most are listed in accompanying Appropriations Committee reports that lack the force of law. The point of this Congressional ruse, in part, is to let Members "air-drop" earmarks at the last minute and thus escape scrutiny by other Members who might try to expose their "Bridges to Nowhere" on the House or Senate floor. Mr. Bush assailed this habit in this year's State of the Union address, and the Members cheered. So why not force Congress to live up to its applause? Some...
December 28, 2007
IBD: Where There's A Will, There's An EO
Investors Business Daily comes to praise George Bush's will -- and demand its use on the earmarks in the omnibus appropriation he signed this week. IBD argues for Bush to issue an executive order defunding the 90% of the 9,000+ earmarks that got airdropped into committee reports: President Bush has proved his courage on Iraq, on SCHIP, and on refusing to accept a tax hike to fix the AMT. His is the sort of will that could squash pork-barrel earmarks — in the name of the Constitution. ... The Congressional Research Service issued a report last week confirming that earmarks not included in the actual bill but written into accompanying reports — which is most of them — do not have force of law and can therefore be disregarded by the president. ... If the president decided to get tough and issue an executive order instructing all agencies not to...
December 29, 2007
Because Oil Companies And Pizza Hut Couldn't Afford It
I've figured out how to get conservatives and liberals together on the issue of pork. All we need to do is show how earmarks put money in the pockets of a progressive bete noir, and if possible, throw in a dash of Congressional cluelessness. That would give us a broad-spectrum motivation to kick some porkers out of the Capitol Hill barbeque. Bingo! One Representative's failure to gas up created an earmark to build a gas station: More than 25 years after he nearly ran out of gas there, Rep. Dave Hobson was finally able to fill up in Wilberforce Thursday at a new Speedway SuperAmerica gas station at U.S. Route 42 and Brush Row Road. ... The development, named the Tawawa/Dave Hobson Plaza at a 1 p.m. ribbon-cutting, is joint project between Speedway SuperAmerica, which has its corporate headquarters in Enon, and the Tawawa Community Business Development Center. In addition...
January 2, 2008
Groundswell Needed For EO
Sources on the Hill tell some of us that a critical point has been reached at the White House on whether to issue an Executive Order that would prevent federal agencies from spending funds on 90% of the earmarks in the Omnibus Spending Bill. According to the whispers, the earmarkers on Capitol Hill have begun to lean heavily on the White House to let the matter drop and to keep the earmark funding in place. Every day brings a fresh round of calls from the same lawmakers who porked up the overdue spending bill, "airdropping" almost all of them (against the new rules in Congress) to keep the porkers from accountability. If CapQ readers want George Bush to issue the Executive Order and hold Congress responsible for violating its own rules while pursuing personal political benefits, they need to let the White House know now how they feel. The EO...
January 10, 2008
Doolittle Out, And Flake Wants A Seat On Appropriations
The Republican brand got a little cleaner today with the announced retirement of Rep. John Doolittle. The ten-term Californian has a big legal mess on his hands over his tight relationship with corrupt lobbyist Jack Abramoff as well as the financial relationship between his wife and Doolittle's contributors. This opens the door for Iraq war veteran Eric Eglund to succeed Doolittle: Doolittle came close to losing re-election in 2006 in one of the most conservative districts in California, and some in his own party believed he couldn't survive this time around. He has denied wrongdoing in his ties to Abramoff, the disgraced former lobbyist whom he considered a close friend. But after the FBI raided the congressman's Virginia home in April looking for information about event-planning work that Doolittle's wife did for Abramoff, the congressman was forced to step down from the powerful Appropriations Committee. A flurry of grand jury...
January 14, 2008
The Power Of Pork
Once again, the power of pork to sustain incumbents gets its best demonstration in the person of John Murtha (D-PA). The acknowledged king of earmarks in the House gains the attention of the New York Times editorial board today, which notes the cozy and lucrative relationship between more than two dozen contractors in Murtha's district and the hundreds of millions of dollars in pork he provided them. It also highlights what roughly amounts to a commission on the sale of Murtha's power as an appropriator: Mr. Murtha led all House members this year, securing $162 million in district favors, according to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. ... In 1991, Mr. Murtha used a $5 million earmark to create the National Defense Center for Environmental Excellence in Johnstown to develop anti-pollution technology for the military. Since then, it has garnered more than $670 million in contracts and earmarks. Meanwhile...
Jeff Flake For Appropriations
Does America want a new direction on pork? Will Republicans start offering credible opposition to its corrosive and corrupting influence? Both have an opportunity to move Congress towards fiscal responsibility and transparency in appropriations. Jeff Flake, the crusading Arizona representative on pork, wants a seat on the House Appropriations Committee, and you can help him get it. Supporters of Jeff Flake have launched a new website, Make It Flake. They list the phone numbers for Republican leadership in the House and have a function where readers can describe the effect of their phone calls. They need people, especially Republicans, to make those calls and let their voices be heard inside the Beltway. Politely make the point that the Republicans need to demonstrate their commitment to fiscal responsibility and clean government in concrete actions as well as rhetoric. Appointing Flake to Appropriations will send that message clearly. Congress begins its session...
January 15, 2008
A Defining Moment For Republicans
The opening on the House Appropriations Committee gives the Republicans a defining moment for their brand in the 110th Congress. Will they appoint a crusading anti-pork activist who can shine4 sunlight on the appropriations process, or will they assign the seat to someone more likely to go along with the status quo? Pressure has increased for the GOP's House leadership to support the crusader, Jeff Flake of Arizona (via Memeorandum): House Republicans this month will face a defining moment when they fill an opening on the Appropriations Committee: Either appoint an anti-earmark lawmaker or risk further alienating conservatives at the grassroots level. The intensifying effort to persuade Republican leaders to select Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) to fill ex-Rep. Roger Wicker’s (R-Miss.) Appropriations seat grew stronger Monday as FreedomWorks endorsed the maverick lawmaker. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), now FreedomWorks president, said in a release, “Appointing Jeff Flake would...
January 16, 2008
A Pushback Against The EO
Some lessons take a while to fully sink into the consciousness, and apparently the lesson of 2006 still hasn't quite finished doing so. Republican as well as Democratic appropriators have flooded the White House with demands that he drop the idea of issuing an executive order to defund the non-legislative earmarks in the omnibus spending bill. Democrats warn of year-long war with the Bush administration, while Republicans complain that they need pork to win elections: The leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee are calling on President Bush to back away from threats to kill funding for lawmakers’ pet projects. The pre-emptive warnings from the top Democrat and Republican on the panel are the clearest signs yet that President Bush could face a bipartisan backlash if he uses his executive authority to wipe out the more than $7 billion in earmarks. .... The executive order would generate enormous support from fiscal...
January 22, 2008
Don't Expect An EO
The Bush administration will probably not issue an executive order canceling the 9,000 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill, the New York Times reports, as the White House does not want to have a war with Congress in 2008. Instead, they will review each request line by line and may demand support for each in writing from its sponsor, proving that the money actually got requested by its beneficiary and it will be spent as intended. This will disappoint many who saw this as an final opportunity for this administration and the GOP to reclaim some credibility on fiscal discipline: President Bush is unlikely to defy Congress on spending billions of dollars earmarked for pet projects, but he will probably insist that lawmakers provide more justification for such earmarks in the future, administration officials said Monday. Fiscal conservatives in Congress and budget watchdogs have been urging Mr. Bush to issue...
January 23, 2008
Not Everyone Porks Up
The Las Vegas Review-Journal notes that the excuse used by members of Congress for pork-barrel spending doesn't add up, like almost every Congressional budget. Politicians claim that their constituents demand the projects that they bring back from Washington, but as the LVRJ notes, it isn't the constituents asking for the money. The federal dollars usually wind up supporting -- other politicians: Lawmakers who continue to indulge in earmarks -- self-described fiscal conservatives among them -- argue that if they don't bring some money home for their constituents, other states are lined up at the trough to steal the leftovers. But the representatives and senators who've stopped bringing home the bacon aren't hearing complaints from voters. In fact, many enjoy the support of citizens tired of seeing tax dollars squandered on projects that have little merit. These taxpayers are content to let other states bear the guilt of such extravagance, if...
Has Bush Lost His Spine On Earmarks?
The Washington Examiner wonders whether George Bush fears Congress more than his constituents in a battle over pork proliferation. As I noted yesterday, the White House appears to have backed away from issuing an executive order defunding the non-legislative earmarks in the omnibus spending bill, which account for 90% of the nine thousand pork items. Porkbusters wonder why the President won't follow a course of action that follows the law and forces Congress to adhere to its own rules: Conservatives and good-government groups have been urging Bush since before Christmas to issue an executive order directing federal agencies to ignore earmarks contained in committee reports that are not attached to legislation voted into law. Bush has previously picked fights with Congress on executive privilege issues. Yet he seems uncharacteristically reluctant to do so now, despite being on legal grounds declared solid by none other than the Congressional Research Service and...
January 24, 2008
Novak: Business As Usual With The GOP
The House Republicans have begun their retreat meetings at Greenbrier, and Robert Novak says that's not the only context of retreat that will come of them. The GOP doesn't appear inclined to put the lessons of 2006 into play in 2008 on battling against pork, and instead will offer half-measures that will ensure business as usual on Capitol Hill: When House Republicans convene behind closed doors today at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., they have a chance to make two bold moves to restore their reputation for fiscal responsibility. First, they could declare a one-year moratorium on Republican congressional earmarks. Second, they could name earmark reformer Rep. Jeff Flake to a vacancy on the House Appropriations Committee. In fact, they almost surely will do neither. Instead, during the retreat Republicans are likely to adopt some limitation on earmarks that will have no public impact and will exert...
January 25, 2008
Pork Trips Landrieu?
Remember how the Democrats were going to change the "culture of corruption" in 2006? It looks like they can once again look to the beam in their own eye. Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has a brewing scandal after taking over $30,000 in contributions from a literacy-program provider within days of inserting an earmark favorable to the company. Landrieu now has opened her files in an effort to explain away the amazing coincidence: A $2 million earmark for the D.C. schools from Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has become an issue in her campaign for re-election after an ethics watchdog group called for federal and congressional investigations, reports The Post's James V. Grimaldi. As reported in The Post's investigative series about the D.C. school system, Landrieu inserted the earmark in 2001 so school officials would buy a reading program from one of her major...
Why Pork Matters
I get a lot of e-mail every day, and I try to read it all even though I can't possibly respond to each message. Most of the messages consist of promotional e-mails, some are spam, and others are personal messages from friends, but occasionally I get earnest questions about topics under discussion that require more than a one-on-one reply. CapQ reader Edward S sent me a question on pork, and why we should consider it such a problem. In part, here is Edward's question: I am a Republican and regular reader of conservative blogs, and I see that the earmarks issue is getting long-term big play as an issue that conservative elected officials ought to do something about. But could you please clarify what you see as the problem: is it that appropriations would be LOWER if there were no earmarks -- meaning that the the actual dollar numbers appropriated...
January 26, 2008
Progress On Pork From The GOP
The Republican retreat at Greenbrier has produced the first signs that House leadership wants to rescue the party's credibility on fiscal discipline. John Boehner and the pork crusaders dragged the rest of the caucus almost literally kicking and screaming to challenge the Democrats to a one-year moratorium on all earmarks. It's not perfect, but it's a start: House Republicans called on Friday for “an immediate moratorium” on earmarking money for pet projects. They urged Democrats to join them in establishing a bipartisan panel to set strict new standards for such spending. As an interim step, House Republican leaders said, they will insist that all House Republicans follow standards to eliminate “wasteful pork-barrel spending.” Republicans set forth their intentions in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The letter reflects a fragile consensus reached Friday after more than two hours of impassioned debate among House Republicans, who met behind closed doors at...
January 28, 2008
The Bucks Stop Here, Next Time
George Bush will sign an executive order to defund all earmarks not including in legislative text -- for FY2009, not from this year's omnibus spending bill. The Wall Street Journal reports from sources within the White House than Bush declined to take the immediate action because he felt he had not sufficiently defined his opposition to earmarks in 2007: We're told he will tell Congress that he will veto any fiscal 2009 spending bill that doesn't cut earmarks in half from 2008 levels. He will also report that he is issuing a Presidential order informing executive departments that from now on they should refuse to fund earmarks that aren't explicitly mentioned in statutory language. This is progress, though frankly less than we had hoped because Mr. Bush's executive order will not apply to the fiscal 2008 spending bills that passed late last year. Congress endorsed 11,735 special-interest earmarks worth $16.9...
January 29, 2008
Bush's Pork Focus Not Popular On The Hill
Last night's State of the Union speech garnered plenty of obligatory standing ovations, but the first issue that President Bush featured has generated plenty of grumbles the next day. Neither Republicans or Democrats much cared for the scolding given during the speech on earmarks, nor on the ultimata delivered by Bush in the joint session event. Senator Thad Cochran (R-MI) bristled at the notion that the executive branch could force fiscal discipline on Congress: While most Republicans praised Monday's speech, Sen. Thad Cochran, the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he opposed the president's attempts to shrink the number of earmarks or local projects sought by lawmakers in spending bills. "Congress has the sole power under the Constitution to appropriate funds for expenditure by the federal government," Cochran said. "I will oppose any measure which in effect transfers this power to the executive branch." .... Bush also ordered...
February 15, 2008
A Fumble On Earmark Reform
I've written several posts about the opening on the House Appropriations Committee that came from Rep. Roger Wicker's (R-MS) appointment to the Senate to fill Trent Lott's open seat. The House GOP had an opportunity to ensure that their commitment to end pork-barrel spending got taken seriously by appointing a porkbuster to the post. Jeff Flake would have delivered that message, as his record on earmark reform is unmistakable. Instead, the GOP selected Jo Bonner (R-AL), a person whose record on pork reform equals that of ... Steny Hoyer, John Doolittle, and James Moran: Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) has been selected to fill the appropriations panel seat vacated by ex-Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), several GOP sources said Thursday. GOP leaders faced a pool of seven House lawmakers, including the chairman of the House campaign committee who ran against two politically vulnerable members, and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who was backed...
The Opacity Of Obama
Barack Obama may find that overpromising and underdelivering will leave openings for political opponents to score real points, especially when the opponent has a clear record from which to punch. Obama has tried to argue that he has the most transparency between Hillary and himself on earmarking, but compared to John McCain, that sounds like damnation through faint praise: Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is on track to become the Democratic presidential nominee, and he's getting the attention his accomplishment deserves. Thursday, Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, and the Republican National Committee treated Obama like the front-runner he is and attacked him -- for not being transparent when it comes to disclosing his earmark requests. ... In the year Obama has been running for president, he has made government transparency a central campaign pledge. That was his strategic decision. But there are consequences when you campaign saying you would...
Two GOP Members, Two Pork Perspectives
Today I had an opportunity to speak to two members of House Republican leadership on Heading Right Radio. Thaddeus McCotter heads the Republican Policy Committee, and talked about the role of the policy committee, but also about the role of earmarks and the need for reform. He feels that Jo Bonner's appointment to Appropriations supports the GOP's efforts at earmark reform, assuring us that Bonner understands the need for reform and will provide as much leadership as Jeff Flake could have in the same role. McCotter talked at length about how we need to make policy interesting and engaging for voters. On the other hand, Paul Ryan didn't hide his disappointment over Bonner's appointment. The ranking member of the House Budget Committee thinks highly of Bonner but agrees with me that the House GOP missed a critical opportunity to establish credibility on reform. We agreed also that pork-barrel reform will...
February 19, 2008
The Road Not Taken
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Perhaps when the elections of 2008 have finished, Republicans will not have reason to ponder what might have been. They may find a voice and a message that will carry them to victory, at least in the House, where that remains possible. But as the Wall Street Journal notes, they may have occasion to consider that refrain by Robert Frost and wonder on what could have been: House Republicans have been taunting Democrats for turning down their offer to eliminate spending earmarks, and Democrats reply that the GOP isn't serious. The Republicans seem intent on proving that Democrats are right, as GOP leaders showed last week in denying Arizona's Jeff Flake a seat on the...
February 22, 2008
Why The House GOP Needs To Be Bold On Earmarks
Over the last few weeks, many of us in the conservative blogosphere have urged House Republican leadership to offer a bold agenda on earmarks and corruption. We advised them to adopt a unilateral moratorium on pork; they declined. We campaigned to get Jeff Flake, a credible reformer, onto the Appropriations Committee; they selected Jo Bonner instead. Today, Rick Renzi reminds us why the GOP needs to get bold and take big leaps instead of baby steps on reform: Republican Rep. Rick Renzi was indicted Friday on charges of extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other matters in an Arizona land swap scam that allegedly helped him collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in payoffs. A 26-page federal indictment unsealed in Arizona accuses Renzi and two former business partners of conspiring to promote the sale of land that buyers could swap for property owned by the federal government. The sale netted...
February 26, 2008
Pork Moratorium Only Mostly Dead?
House Republicans had an opportunity to take a bold stand on pork by declaring a unilateral moratorium on earmarking in 2008. Instead, they offered one in conjunction with the Democrats, who scoffed at the notion of ending the bacon ride for even a single year. Porkbusters decried the lost opportunity for Republicans in building a message of clean government and real transparency. Jim DeMint has taken up the cause in the upper chamber instead. He plans on introducing legislation that will force the moratorium on the entire Congress: Hoping to bring the House fight over earmark reform to the Senate, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) will propose a full one-year moratorium on considering bills with earmarks as part of the fiscal 2009 budget resolution, the lawmaker said Monday. DeMint, who will discuss the moratorium during today’s weekly GOP luncheon, said he believes his proposal could create the political room needed to...
About
Ed Morrissey has blogged at Captain's Quarters since 2003, and has a daily radio show at BlogTalkRadio, where he serves as Political Director. Called "Captain Ed" by his readers, Ed is a father and grandfather living in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota, a native Californian who moved to the North Star State because of the weather.
My Other Blog
The Crows Nest
Pork Moratorium Only Mostly Dead?
House Republicans had an opportunity to take a bold stand on pork by declaring a unilateral moratorium on earmarking in 2008. Instead, they offered one in conjunction with the Democrats, who scoffed at the notion of ending the bacon ride for even a single year. Porkbusters decried the lost opportunity for Republicans in building a message of clean government and real transparency.
Jim DeMint has taken up the cause in the upper chamber instead. He plans on introducing legislation that will force the moratorium on the entire Congress:
Hoping to bring the House fight over earmark reform to the Senate, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) will propose a full one-year moratorium on considering bills with earmarks as part of the fiscal 2009 budget resolution, the lawmaker said Monday.DeMint, who will discuss the moratorium during today’s weekly GOP luncheon, said he believes his proposal could create the political room needed to bring reform to the process.
“Let’s get real. Even Rep. Henry Waxman [D-Calif.] over in the House says ‘We’re not going to fix it while we’re doing it,’” DeMint said, adding that “the only way we’ll fix it is if we say ‘Let’s go cold turkey for a year.’ The best thing we could do this year is come up with some good reform ideas.” Waxman recently agreed to suspend the use of earmarks, one of the few Democrats who have joined with Republicans on the issue.
DeMint will propose an amendment on the upcoming budget resolution. It would force the Senate to go on record opposing or supporting the moratorium, an unpleasant prospect in an election year. If passed, the amendment would make any bill with earmarks, as defined by the Senate, out of order. That includes appropriations and authorizations, cutting down on the potential work-arounds.
Will the Senate pass the bill? Probably not. They may not even get all of the Republicans to vote yes. Ted Stevens and Thad Cochran would be two likely nay votes. John McCain would probably fly back to DC to cast a yes vote, though, and that kind of pressure might push more Republicans into supporting it. McCain could also use the vote to highlight a key difference between himself and Barack Obama if Obama either skips the vote or votes to oppose it.
It's time to contact your Senators. Let them know that the voters have tired of seeing Congress use our money to protect their incumbencies. Call 202-224-3121 and make your case politely and in detail. Support DeMint and other leaders on pork reform and help force Congress into more responsible and accountable governance.
Why The House GOP Needs To Be Bold On Earmarks
Over the last few weeks, many of us in the conservative blogosphere have urged House Republican leadership to offer a bold agenda on earmarks and corruption. We advised them to adopt a unilateral moratorium on pork; they declined. We campaigned to get Jeff Flake, a credible reformer, onto the Appropriations Committee; they selected Jo Bonner instead.
Today, Rick Renzi reminds us why the GOP needs to get bold and take big leaps instead of baby steps on reform:
Republican Rep. Rick Renzi was indicted Friday on charges of extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other matters in an Arizona land swap scam that allegedly helped him collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in payoffs.A 26-page federal indictment unsealed in Arizona accuses Renzi and two former business partners of conspiring to promote the sale of land that buyers could swap for property owned by the federal government. The sale netted one of Renzi's former partners $4.5 million. ...
The indictment accuses Renzi of using his position as a member of the House Natural Resources Committee to push the land swaps for Sandlin, who was also charged. It comes after a lengthy federal investigation into the land development and insurance businesses owned by Renzi's family.
The extensive legal document says Renzi refused in 2005 and 2006 to secure congressional approval for land swaps by two unnamed businesses if they did not agree to buy Sandlin's property as a part of the deal.
Renzi has not yet had his day in court, and is presumed innocent until proven guilty to the satisfaction of a jury. However, Renzi's problems have been well known for months, and he's not the only member of the House GOP caucus with these kinds of problems. Jerry Lewis and John Doolittle both remain under investigation by the FBI for allegations of corruption, and both are known for their pork habits. Lewis is ranking member on the Appropriations Committee.
The Republicans face another cycle where scandals will dominate the elections. In 2006, various corruption and personal-conduct scandals helped strip the GOP of its majority after 12 years in office. In 2007, few members understood the rupture of trust that they needed to heal, and continued to pork up bill after bill along with the Democrats.
Voters will not trust Republicans until they can prove two things: that they have learned their lesson, and that they are significantly different from the Democrats in responsible leadership. Bold moves like unilateral moratoriums and the promotion of tough-minded reformers can help make that argument. Incremental measures such as taken by the Republicans at Greenbrier may help improve the oversight on earmarks, but they don't address the bigger issue of public trust -- which Renzi's 35-count indictment highlights.
The Road Not Taken
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Perhaps when the elections of 2008 have finished, Republicans will not have reason to ponder what might have been. They may find a voice and a message that will carry them to victory, at least in the House, where that remains possible. But as the Wall Street Journal notes, they may have occasion to consider that refrain by Robert Frost and wonder on what could have been:
House Republicans have been taunting Democrats for turning down their offer to eliminate spending earmarks, and Democrats reply that the GOP isn't serious. The Republicans seem intent on proving that Democrats are right, as GOP leaders showed last week in denying Arizona's Jeff Flake a seat on the Appropriations Committee.Mr. Flake is the scourge of earmarks and the last person Members of either party want on Congress's main spending committee. He would have been a whistle-blower for taxpayers, in particular against the powerful Democrats who get the most earmarks now that they are in the majority, such as Pennsylvania's Jack Murtha. But Republican spenders couldn't tolerate someone who would call out their pork too.
With Roger Wicker getting a mid-term promotion to the Senate, the House GOP caucus had an opportunity to take the road less traveled -- in fact, hardly traveled for generations. They had an opportunity to put some teeth behind their rhetoric on pork by appointing Jeff Flake to Appropriations. His downside? Insufficient loyalty; Republicans had served as targets for Flake's anti-pork ire as well as Democrats.
Jo Bonner's appointment doesn't mean that the world has ended, either. Bonner has an atrocious RePork Card rating, as the WSJ notes, and his previous votes on Charlie Rangel's Monument to Me doesn't create a lot of confidence at the start. Those who know Bonner believe him when he states that he will adhere to the new GOP guidelines on pork, an improvement over what preceded it -- nothing -- but not the unilateral rejection of pork that activists desired. Bonner deserves a chance to prove himself, and the acknowledgment from House GOP leadership that he will do so at least shows more seriousness on this issue.
However, in order to clean up Congress and to atone for the Republican role in the pork explosion over the past decade, the House GOP needs to have a lot more people rejecting pork altogether. If the entire caucus and party staged a unilateral moratorium on the corrosive practice, they could turn that into a message that resonates among an electorate that has soured on Congress to a historical degree -- in which only 13% of Americans approve of the branch of government that most closely represents themselves.
The Republicans need to take the road less traveled. In the end, it would make all the difference.
Two GOP Members, Two Pork Perspectives
Today I had an opportunity to speak to two members of House Republican leadership on Heading Right Radio. Thaddeus McCotter heads the Republican Policy Committee, and talked about the role of the policy committee, but also about the role of earmarks and the need for reform. He feels that Jo Bonner's appointment to Appropriations supports the GOP's efforts at earmark reform, assuring us that Bonner understands the need for reform and will provide as much leadership as Jeff Flake could have in the same role. McCotter talked at length about how we need to make policy interesting and engaging for voters.
On the other hand, Paul Ryan didn't hide his disappointment over Bonner's appointment. The ranking member of the House Budget Committee thinks highly of Bonner but agrees with me that the House GOP missed a critical opportunity to establish credibility on reform. We agreed also that pork-barrel reform will resonate with voters in the Congressional election -- which Duane "Generalissimo" Patterson rejected -- and that the GOP needs a big message for the upcoming elections.
Both men agreed on the failure of the House to vote on the FISA bill, and were quite impassioned about the subject. Be sure to listen to the whole show on the player on the sidebar or on the link above.
The Opacity Of Obama
Barack Obama may find that overpromising and underdelivering will leave openings for political opponents to score real points, especially when the opponent has a clear record from which to punch. Obama has tried to argue that he has the most transparency between Hillary and himself on earmarking, but compared to John McCain, that sounds like damnation through faint praise:
Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) is on track to become the Democratic presidential nominee, and he's getting the attention his accomplishment deserves. Thursday, Sen. John McCain, the presumptive GOP nominee, and the Republican National Committee treated Obama like the front-runner he is and attacked him -- for not being transparent when it comes to disclosing his earmark requests. ...In the year Obama has been running for president, he has made government transparency a central campaign pledge. That was his strategic decision. But there are consequences when you campaign saying you would do one thing as president, but don't do it as a senator.
One might guess that Obama is a model of disclosure. He is not. He has been improving. But he has gaps, and Thursday's blasts from the Republicans showed they have no reluctance to exploit an Obama weakness. ... The Obama response has been that they disclose more than Clinton, a reply I think shows calculation, not conviction. The goal for Obama is not just to stay a step ahead of Clinton. Now he's got to deal with McCain.
This will be a critical point in the upcoming election. Barack Obama has run on the message that he wants to change Washington politics. Indeed, "hope" and "change" have been almost all we've heard from the Obama campaign, and his success in these themes show just how much the American electorate agrees that DC has to change its methods of operation.
But who will be the candidate who can deliver that change? Will it be the Senator who promised transparency in earmarks but didn't deliver, not even in the short time he's been in Washington? Or will it be the Senator who doesn't earmark at all and promises to veto any appropriations bills that have earmarks?
Obama promises a lot on transparency, and on occasion, he has delivered -- as he did on the Coburn-Obama Act that created a federal database of government expenditures. McCain, on the other hand, has always delivered on earmarks, fighting them and eschewing them entirely. Obama may be better than Hillary Clinton, but that just puts him with 75% of his colleagues in the Senate. McCain provides a stark contrast to business as usual.
A Fumble On Earmark Reform
I've written several posts about the opening on the House Appropriations Committee that came from Rep. Roger Wicker's (R-MS) appointment to the Senate to fill Trent Lott's open seat. The House GOP had an opportunity to ensure that their commitment to end pork-barrel spending got taken seriously by appointing a porkbuster to the post. Jeff Flake would have delivered that message, as his record on earmark reform is unmistakable.
Instead, the GOP selected Jo Bonner (R-AL), a person whose record on pork reform equals that of ... Steny Hoyer, John Doolittle, and James Moran:
Rep. Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) has been selected to fill the appropriations panel seat vacated by ex-Rep. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), several GOP sources said Thursday.GOP leaders faced a pool of seven House lawmakers, including the chairman of the House campaign committee who ran against two politically vulnerable members, and Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who was backed by the anti-earmark community and conservative blogs.
Bonner’s selection is a safe move, given his membership in the conservative Republican Study Committee and that he is filling a seat vacated by a fellow southerner.
Bonner has a 2% rating from the Club for Growth on its RePork Card. That means that Bonner voted for 1 out of 50 pork reform bills in 2007. Bonner is no stranger to earmarking. While totals are difficult to come by, thanks to the 110th Congress' rulebreaking on earmark transparency,he has at least $4.5 million in earmarks in the defense bill and a half-million in the Labor/HHS/Education appropriation as well.
House Majority Leader John Boehner noted that Bonner supports a moratorium on earmarks, as well as the unilateral reforms that the GOP caucus has promulgated for this year's budget process. The moratorium only comes into effect, however, if the Democrats agree to it. Except for a high-profile endorsement from the very liberal Henry Waxman (D-CA), the Democrats have taken a pass. The House Republican caucus has rejected a unilateral moratorium, which leaves Bonner free to pursue earmarks -- and worse, keeps a real watchdog off of the Appropriations panel.
The House GOP caucus has a tough election year ahead. If they want a message that gives voters a reason to vote for Republicans rather than just against Democrats, they could do a lot worse than to campaign on ending the source of personal corruption on Capitol Hill. That will take real risk and real courage by unilaterally declaring that the Republican Party will no longer participate in the earmarking process that buys contributors and illegitimately extends federal power, and in appointing activists to key positions to make sure that earmarks get opposed all the way through the process.
They could win with these kinds of bold moves. The half-measures they have offered thus far will not impress enough people to carry them to victory. The appointment of Jo Bonner doesn't even qualify as a half-measure, but looks like business as usual.
UPDATE: Others commenting on this fumblaya:
Bush's Pork Focus Not Popular On The Hill
Last night's State of the Union speech garnered plenty of obligatory standing ovations, but the first issue that President Bush featured has generated plenty of grumbles the next day. Neither Republicans or Democrats much cared for the scolding given during the speech on earmarks, nor on the ultimata delivered by Bush in the joint session event. Senator Thad Cochran (R-MI) bristled at the notion that the executive branch could force fiscal discipline on Congress:
While most Republicans praised Monday's speech, Sen. Thad Cochran, the highest-ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said he opposed the president's attempts to shrink the number of earmarks or local projects sought by lawmakers in spending bills."Congress has the sole power under the Constitution to appropriate funds for expenditure by the federal government," Cochran said. "I will oppose any measure which in effect transfers this power to the executive branch." ....
Bush also ordered federal agencies to ignore future earmarks that are "airdropped" into bills without being considered in committees.
"Both Congress and the president must exercise good judgment and restraint" in spending decisions, Cochran said. But he added, "There is no magic legislation or executive quick fix."
He doesn't think an executive quick fix exists? Neither do I. However, the EO gives the White House a good starting place. It will force legislators to insert the language into the actual bill -- where transparency rules will force them to take ownership of their earmarks.
That, of course, assumes they will follow their rules. Congress simply ignored them on the omnibus bill last month. And if the Democratic response gives any indication, they may still consider them guidelines rather than rules:
Over the last few days, we've learned quite a bit about what House Democrats don't like:• They don't like President Bush's vow during last night's State of the Union address to veto any appropriations bills that don't cut earmarks in half.
• They don't like Bush's plan to issue an executive order telling agencies to ignore earmarks that aren't written into the legislative text of spending bills.
• They don't like the House GOP's call, made Friday night during the Republican retreat, for both sides to agree to a temporary earmark moratorium.
• They don't like -- or at least haven't shown any enthusiasm for -- Republicans' proposal for a bipartisan select committee to recommend changes to the earmarking process.
Democrats don't seem particularly concerned about it, either. Despite the failure of their own caucus to abide by the so-called reforms of which they've bragged for months, they have no desire to close the loopholes. They don't even want to talk about it, let alone take action to reduce the problem.
Remember when the White House explained to the porkbusters that they couldn't sandbag Congress by issuing the EO for this year's earmarks? The message apparently got interpreted as a lack of seriousness in addressing the issue on both sides of the aisle. It's too bad, because President Bush has at least one group in DC worried -- K Street.
The Bucks Stop Here, Next Time
George Bush will sign an executive order to defund all earmarks not including in legislative text -- for FY2009, not from this year's omnibus spending bill. The Wall Street Journal reports from sources within the White House than Bush declined to take the immediate action because he felt he had not sufficiently defined his opposition to earmarks in 2007:
We're told he will tell Congress that he will veto any fiscal 2009 spending bill that doesn't cut earmarks in half from 2008 levels. He will also report that he is issuing a Presidential order informing executive departments that from now on they should refuse to fund earmarks that aren't explicitly mentioned in statutory language.This is progress, though frankly less than we had hoped because Mr. Bush's executive order will not apply to the fiscal 2008 spending bills that passed late last year. Congress endorsed 11,735 special-interest earmarks worth $16.9 billion in fiscal 2008, yet thousands of these weren't even written into the actual budget bills. Instead, they were "air-dropped" at the last minute into nonbinding conference reports that serve as advice to federal departments about where to allocate funds. This ruse means that earmarks are able to avoid scrutiny from spending hawks on the House and Senate floor.
We argued in December that Mr. Bush had the legal authority to refuse to fund those this year as well. But in the end we hear he acceded to the argument from Capitol Hill that because he hadn't made a specific earmark veto pledge last year, he would be sandbagging Congress after the fact and courting its wrath.
The President had, however, said the following last year: "even worse, over 90% of earmarks never make it to the floor of the House and Senate -- they are dropped into committee reports that are not even part of the bill that arrives on my desk. You didn't vote them into law. I didn't sign them into law. Yet they're treated as if they have the force of law. The time has come to end this practice." Members in both parties whooped and hollered in approval, even as they could barely contain their self-knowing grins.
This will disappoint the Americans who reached out to the White House to insist that Bush take action to force Congress to obey its own rules. He gave leaders of both parties a clear warning in that statement, but will give them a pass for another year. No one will have "sandbagged" Congress with an EO that applied to this year's budget, and in fact that sounds like a rationalization that came straight off of Capitol Hill.
It doesn't demonstrate much courage to put off executive action until the final months of his lame-duck presidency. Allowing the pork projects to stand also won't help rescue the GOP's credibility on fiscal discipline. Like it or not, Bush's actions reflect on the party, and this doesn't improve its position much. It has all the credibility of a parent who tells Junior that the next time he steals from his neighbors, he's really, really, really going to be punished.
Really. This time, he means it. Really.
The EO on future action at least sets a line down in the sand which will be somewhat more uncomfortable to erase. It will require a President -- Bush or his successor -- to actually issue an EO canceling the first and allowing non-legislative pork. That kind of overt act to allow pork-barrel spending will be political suicide, and the Congress that demands it will kill their own credibility along with the president that acquiesces. And next time, neither entity can say they didn't understand the rules beforehand.
It's an opportunity lost, but perhaps a baby step in the right direction.
Progress On Pork From The GOP
The Republican retreat at Greenbrier has produced the first signs that House leadership wants to rescue the party's credibility on fiscal discipline. John Boehner and the pork crusaders dragged the rest of the caucus almost literally kicking and screaming to challenge the Democrats to a one-year moratorium on all earmarks. It's not perfect, but it's a start:
House Republicans called on Friday for “an immediate moratorium” on earmarking money for pet projects. They urged Democrats to join them in establishing a bipartisan panel to set strict new standards for such spending.As an interim step, House Republican leaders said, they will insist that all House Republicans follow standards to eliminate “wasteful pork-barrel spending.”
Republicans set forth their intentions in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The letter reflects a fragile consensus reached Friday after more than two hours of impassioned debate among House Republicans, who met behind closed doors at their annual conference at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.
Democrats won control of the House in 2006 with promises to end the Republican “culture of corruption.” House Republican leaders hope to seize the initiative on the issue, which they believe resonates with millions of voters.
Boehner and activists like Jeff Flake wanted a unilateral moratorium on earmarks, but that got shot down by a caucus fearful of losing the balance of power. Many didn't want to address pork at all, but the majority of House Republicans have slowly come to understand that their years of larding appropriations with self-serving projects has ruined their credibility with small-government conservatives -- and dented overall contributions as a result. Few are willing to accept their arguments to represent cleaner and smaller government without some dramatic moves to repair the damage already done.
Will the Democrats take up the challenge? Boehner's letter requests an answer by the end of the Democratic retreat, which will be in less than two weeks. So far the response has been minimal, but a spokesperson for Nancy Pelosi reminded the media that the Democrats lowered the number of earmarks during their control of Congress. They did -- they lowered it from a peak of over 13,000 earmarks to 11,700 in the FY2008 budget, which isn't exactly impressive as reforms go. They also violated their own supposed reforms by allowing airdropped and non-legislative earmarks, which accounted for 90% of the earmarks in the omnibus spending bill.
If that will be the sum total of the Democratic response, the Republicans have a winning issue -- f they stick to their guns. In the event Pelosi fails to meet the challenge, Republicans will instead begin adhering to new standards of behavior:
Boehner has done a great job in pressing the Republican caucus for real change. This may not be what porkbusters want as a solution, but it isn't a bad start. It puts pork on the table as a real issue, and it forces the House Democrats to respond. The Democrats will likely deride this as a stunt, but it pushes the envelope a little farther in the direction of reform -- and that's worthwhile, as a start.
Why Pork Matters
I get a lot of e-mail every day, and I try to read it all even though I can't possibly respond to each message. Most of the messages consist of promotional e-mails, some are spam, and others are personal messages from friends, but occasionally I get earnest questions about topics under discussion that require more than a one-on-one reply. CapQ reader Edward S sent me a question on pork, and why we should consider it such a problem. In part, here is Edward's question:
I am a Republican and regular reader of conservative blogs, and I see that the earmarks issue is getting long-term big play as an issue that conservative elected officials ought to do something about. But could you please clarify what you see as the problem: is it that appropriations would be LOWER if there were no earmarks -- meaning that the the actual dollar numbers appropriated would be LESS money spent out of the Treasury -- or is it that the same money would be spent, but on services and goods chosen by executive branch officials rather than chosen by the legislators?For example, in your post today about a school contract, the problem you point to is that the school officials were going to spend the same money, but wanted a different contractor. That's not the same thing as if the money wasn't going to be spent at all.
If what you're complaining about is legislators making the decision on who actually gets the contract and the money, I have to say I'm not as upset as I am in a situation where the money just wouldn't be spent at all. In our system of government, isn't it in principle OK for the legislators to decide who gets the contract? It means that we the people get to vote directly on whether to re-elect people based on how good they are at choosing contractors.
It's a great question. Why wouldn't we want legislators making these decisions, when they have more direct accountability to the voters? After all, the deeper it gets into the bureaucracy, the less control the people have over the money.
All of that would be true if it weren't for the way in which earmarks get used. Too often, Representatives and Senators aren't directing money for the purpose of efficiency or to bypass a bloated bureaucratic process. They're earmarking to earn credits with political supporters, as the Mary Landrieu case makes quite plain, and as the various Jack Abramoff scandals showed earlier. Either they're currying favor with state and local officials back home to solidify their own power base, or they're cutting sweetheart deals with contributors to their campaigns. In almost all cases, the earmarks have a lot more to do with their own interests than those of the people.
It also reduces the efficiencies of competitive bidding. Almost all earmarks go to some specific entity, which avoids the necessity of competing for a contract or grant. That raises prices and lowers quality no matter how well-intentioned it might be. The procurement bureaucracies have mandates to force competitive bidding that Capitol Hill politicians can bypass through earmarking. The result? Poorer service, higher-priced products, and more waste and mismanagement from the government.
The worst part of earmarks is that they entrench power in Washington. People like Jack Murtha, Ted Stevens, Robert Byrd, and others gain lifetime sinecures by wielding pork to extort votes and curry favor. Not only does this pervert the legislative process, but it also makes it more difficult to unseat incumbents, some of whom really need replacing. Instead of citizen legislators, it leads to first a professional class of politicians and then an elite whose power cannot be challenged. The only people who have any reasonable chance of success are those who can outspend the incumbents, and that usually means people who can write their own checks.
Pork perverts self-government. It puts all of the incentives in the wrong places and forces action in the wrong direction. Eliminating the pork in this year's bills might not save a dime as the agencies will simply receive the money without prior forced allocation. However, by removing the struts of power on which pork rests, we can change the incentives so that forking over huge sums of money to overpowerful bureaucracies becomes a political liability instead of an asset. That's when we will see politicians focused on eliminating waste, reducing budgets, and shrinking the reach of the federal government.
Pork matters. Anyone interested in clean government regardless of policy outlook can find common ground for agreement on this point. Small-government advocates should especially see this as the entree to fighting federal expansionism.
UPDATE: Mark Tapscott kindly links back to this post.
Pork Trips Landrieu?
Remember how the Democrats were going to change the "culture of corruption" in 2006? It looks like they can once again look to the beam in their own eye. Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) has a brewing scandal after taking over $30,000 in contributions from a literacy-program provider within days of inserting an earmark favorable to the company. Landrieu now has opened her files in an effort to explain away the amazing coincidence:
A $2 million earmark for the D.C. schools from Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) has become an issue in her campaign for re-election after an ethics watchdog group called for federal and congressional investigations, reports The Post's James V. Grimaldi.As reported in The Post's investigative series about the D.C. school system, Landrieu inserted the earmark in 2001 so school officials would buy a reading program from one of her major campaign contributors. School officials, who had other reading programs in mind, were initially resistant. ...
The $2 million earmark was guided into law by Landrieu in the fall of 2001, just after she had received more than $30,000 in campaign contributions at a fundraiser held by Best. Best told The Post that the idea for the fundraiser came in a call from Landrieu's office after he had met with the senator about getting funding for Voyager.
According to Voyager's founder, he proposed the fundraiser well after he had pitched the idea to Landrieu, but had not seen any action on the proposal. The DC school system didn't want the Voyager system, but that didn't stop Landrieu. After Best and Voyager contributed over $30,000 to her campaign on November 2nd, 2001, Landrieu inserted the earmark for Voyager's $2 million contract on November 6th.
For those with calculators, that represents an ROI of about 6600% for Voyager, at least in terms of gross revenue. Once could also cast it as a sale cost of 1.5%. Either way, it shows what an incredible bargain Landrieu represents in the politician-leasing market.
This is the reason so many of us push hard on pork-related reform. The taxpayers got stuck with a $2 million bill for a program its recipient didn't want, all so that a politician could get campaign funds and further entrench her incumbency. Pork corrupts, and it has to end.
Novak: Business As Usual With The GOP
The House Republicans have begun their retreat meetings at Greenbrier, and Robert Novak says that's not the only context of retreat that will come of them. The GOP doesn't appear inclined to put the lessons of 2006 into play in 2008 on battling against pork, and instead will offer half-measures that will ensure business as usual on Capitol Hill:
When House Republicans convene behind closed doors today at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., they have a chance to make two bold moves to restore their reputation for fiscal responsibility. First, they could declare a one-year moratorium on Republican congressional earmarks. Second, they could name earmark reformer Rep. Jeff Flake to a vacancy on the House Appropriations Committee. In fact, they almost surely will do neither.Instead, during the retreat Republicans are likely to adopt some limitation on earmarks that will have no public impact and will exert no pressure on the earmark-happy Democratic majority. Consideration of Flake's candidacy for Appropriations was postponed until after this week's earmark debate at the Greenbrier. But, content with a half-measure on earmarks, the House Republicans are unlikely to place Flake, an insistent reformer, in the midst of the pork-dispensing appropriators.
Instead of taking advantage of obvious public disgust with earmark-related corruption over the last two years, the Republicans will offer no significant change in direction. Even a one-year moratorium on pork won't pass muster. The fear that the GOP will have no mechanism to protect incumbencies remains too strong to overcome any momentum for reform.
Jeff Flake will almost certainly not get his requested appointment to the Appropriations Committee as a result. The GOP will probably live to regret this, and Flake has already warned them of the consequences. Instead of representing the GOP and its voluntary moratorium on a committee chaired by Democrat porker David Obey, Flake will remain on the outside fighting both parties on earmarks. Last year he offered a dozen amendments attempting to strip out pork projects. If left off the committee, he says that number will increase rapidly and include Republican projects.
The Republicans have an opportunity to lead a generational change in Congressional politics. If they skip it, the missed chance will demonstrate a lack of political courage that should lead Republicans to demand new leadership in next year's 111th Congress. Let's hope Novak called this one incorrectly.
Has Bush Lost His Spine On Earmarks?
The Washington Examiner wonders whether George Bush fears Congress more than his constituents in a battle over pork proliferation. As I noted yesterday, the White House appears to have backed away from issuing an executive order defunding the non-legislative earmarks in the omnibus spending bill, which account for 90% of the nine thousand pork items. Porkbusters wonder why the President won't follow a course of action that follows the law and forces Congress to adhere to its own rules:
Conservatives and good-government groups have been urging Bush since before Christmas to issue an executive order directing federal agencies to ignore earmarks contained in committee reports that are not attached to legislation voted into law. Bush has previously picked fights with Congress on executive privilege issues. Yet he seems uncharacteristically reluctant to do so now, despite being on legal grounds declared solid by none other than the Congressional Research Service and the U.S. Supreme Court.So what is Bush waiting for?
Signing such an executive order would eliminate most earmarks and force Congress to clean up its act. By funneling billions of dollars to favored — and often secret — earmark recipients, members of Congress bypass their own legislative process, as well as the competitive bidding typically required in the executive branch.
Bush has received warnings from Congressional leadership in both parties that cancellation of the earmarks would lead to angry relations from members in 2008. This amounts to a type of extortion. How much should non-angry relations cost the American taxpayer? Is it really worth the $16.7 billion contained in these earmarks for everyone to have a Rodney King moment and get along -- for about a day?
Or are there other considerations? Last night, the Politico reported that the Democrats in the House have stalled on voting for contempt citations against Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten over the firings of presidentially-appointed federal prosecutors. Their leadership says they've put it off to keep a bipartisan effort on an economic stimulus alive, but privately admit they don't have the votes to approve the citations. Perhaps the White House figures that the $16.7 billion has convinced enough Representatives to vote down the citations.
Is that unfair? Well, when our elected officials demand that they keep their money in exchange for doing the nation's business, they have identified themselves as commodities to be bought and sold, if not the explicit basis of the sales. If Bush wants to end that kind of politics using the clear authority he has to do so, he will have no better opportunity.
Not Everyone Porks Up
The Las Vegas Review-Journal notes that the excuse used by members of Congress for pork-barrel spending doesn't add up, like almost every Congressional budget. Politicians claim that their constituents demand the projects that they bring back from Washington, but as the LVRJ notes, it isn't the constituents asking for the money. The federal dollars usually wind up supporting -- other politicians:
Lawmakers who continue to indulge in earmarks -- self-described fiscal conservatives among them -- argue that if they don't bring some money home for their constituents, other states are lined up at the trough to steal the leftovers.But the representatives and senators who've stopped bringing home the bacon aren't hearing complaints from voters. In fact, many enjoy the support of citizens tired of seeing tax dollars squandered on projects that have little merit. These taxpayers are content to let other states bear the guilt of such extravagance, if such sacrifices bring the country closer to fiscal responsibility and accountability.
No, most of the squealing these lawmakers hear comes from ... state and local governments, the biggest beneficiaries of federal pork.
Members of Congress, who spend most of their time in Washington, don't come up with ideas for earmarks on their own. They're bombarded with pork requests from state legislatures, law enforcement agencies, public colleges and universities and municipal governments.
This exposes one of the dirty secrets of the earmark process. If one looks through the earmarks carefully, a large percentage of them go to other politicians. It feeds the system that produces the candidates and ensures that incumbents maintain their power base in their home districts and states. Failure to feed the machine could result in an end to the career in Congress.
The Review-Journal mentions several Congressmen and Senators who have rejected pork for their districts and states, including Jeff Flake and Tom Coburn. Neither of them earmark funds at all, and neither does my Congressman, John Kline (R-MN). He converted to the porkbuster cause after the 2006 election taught him and the rest of the GOP a painful lesson.
Not that conversion has been easy. The LVRJ notes that our district has its share of unhappy local politicians who counted on getting easy money from Washington. The Scott County board wanted some cash for a road in their area, but Kline refused to acquiesce. Jon Ulrich, one of the commissioners, says that he wanted Kline to work within the system while trying to change it -- or, in other words, hypocritically earmark funds while railing against earmarks.
Kline's not a hypocrite, unlike others who have no problem complaining about extra-Constitutional federal action while larding up their home districts. We need more Republicans like Kline, and a GOP leadership that recognizes the risks they take. That's why many of us continue to call for Jeff Flake to get the open seat on the House Appropriations Committee -- so that the Republican leadership can demonstrate that they want to end the hypocrisy as well.
Don't Expect An EO
The Bush administration will probably not issue an executive order canceling the 9,000 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill, the New York Times reports, as the White House does not want to have a war with Congress in 2008. Instead, they will review each request line by line and may demand support for each in writing from its sponsor, proving that the money actually got requested by its beneficiary and it will be spent as intended. This will disappoint many who saw this as an final opportunity for this administration and the GOP to reclaim some credibility on fiscal discipline:
President Bush is unlikely to defy Congress on spending billions of dollars earmarked for pet projects, but he will probably insist that lawmakers provide more justification for such earmarks in the future, administration officials said Monday.Fiscal conservatives in Congress and budget watchdogs have been urging Mr. Bush to issue an executive order instructing agencies to disregard the many earmarks listed just in committee reports, not in the text of legislation.
More than 90 percent of earmarks are specified that way, not actually included in the texts. White House officials say such earmarks are not legally binding on the president.
Congressional leaders of both parties, who are scheduled to meet on Tuesday with the president, said Mr. Bush would provoke a huge outcry on Capitol Hill if he ignored those earmarks.
Some people have tried to see the silver lining in the failure. Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform sees the approach as a possible way for Bush to set a precedent for dealing with "the most egregious earmarks", and one that could be demanded of presidential candidates to follow in the future. It also keeps the agencies themselves from getting stuck in the middle between the White House and Congress in a political battle that would leave few unmarked by the political strife.
If Bush demands support in writing for these earmarks, that might also have a beneficial effect. These pork projects got dropped into non-legislative text, and so have no sunlight on sponsors or their connections to the beneficiaries. Forcing the individual sponsors to supply justification, even just on the sillier and "egregious" earmarks, will push the porkers into the light -- and provide their opponents with some ammunition in the next election. The earmarks may not be worth the risk in most cases and might get shelved.
That depends, however, on the Bush administration's tenacity and dedication to eliminating earmarks. So far, we haven't seen much evidence of either on this issue. An EO would have forced this and future Congresses to follow their own rules and earmark with greater transparency, and it wouldn't require another bureaucracy to manage it. Somehow I doubt that the Bush administration has the patience or even the inclination to force legislators to provide explicit and open support for even the worst of the earmarks in the package.
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