Republicans win House Battle over Earmarks

During the last election Democrats promised to reign in out of control earmark spending. However, when they came into power they decided to hide earmark spending in bills until it was too late to vote the spending out of the bills. Last week in an effort by the Republicans to stop this practice, the senate was ground down into a standstill. This appears to have worked as an agreement has been reached to make earmarks more transparent.

An agreement providing greater transparency on spending earmarks in the House was hailed on Friday by a government watchdog group and GOP officials as a victory for taxpayers

So how do the Democrats feel about being one-upped by Republicans?

Several telephone calls seeking comment for this article from the offices of Obey, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and the House Democratic Caucus were not returned by press time.

Apparently not too happy. I guess earmark spending is only wrong when Republicans do it, the Democrats use their earmarks so well that they shouldn’t be debated. If Democrats are doing it it must be right.

The truth is that all politicians love their pork, no matter what side of the aisle they are on. But when you campaign on reforming the spending and your idea of reform is to hide it so knowone will know, that’s wrong.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) promised that as the new House speaker, she would lead the “most ethical Congress in history.”

Last January, new Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) pledged in a press release that his party would “help bring back fiscal responsibility” to the chamber “by holding members accountable for their earmarks.”

Obey said at the time that he would make any requested earmarks public during floor debate on their respective spending bills.

In May, Obey announced that earmarks would not be released to the public until after closed-door conference committee meetings were held between the House and the Senate to reconcile spending bills, usually by late summer.

But the resulting conference reports are not subject to amendment, leaving members of Congress no chance to challenge any individual project.

The bottom line is that it would be pretty foolish to vote based on a promise to curb out of control spending. There was never a chance this was going to happen. This new agreement will probably have the reverse effect that it is supposed to have. Republicans will probably agree with most Democrat earmarks in return for more earmarks of their own.

It is fun watching the Democrats stumble around trying to pass legislation though and getting nothing done. They are finding it much harder to lead than to be in the background doing nothing but complaining. Their old strategy was to wait for Bush to take a stance on an issue, and then oppose it. Now that they need to stand on their own, they can’t.