Earmark Rules Considered in House and Senate
The Republican Members of the House and Senate have voted to support a two-year ban on earmarks within their own party. However, the definition of an earmark has not been clearly delineated. In the House, because Republicans now have the majority and will be in charge, House Democrats will not be allowed to insert earmarks either, according to The New York Times. The Senate is expected to vote soon on a binding earmark moratorium. If passed, it would go into effect immediately and remain in effect through fiscal year 2013. Sponsors of the amendment are Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), John McCain (R-AZ) and Mark Udall (D-CO). The moratorium would create a rule allowing members to raise points of order against any bill that includes an earmark. The amendment defines earmarks with this language:"a provision or report language included primarily at the request of a Senator or Member of the House of Representatives providing, authorizing, or recommending a specific amount of discretionary budget authority, credit authority, or other spending authority for a contract, loan, loan guarantee, grant, loan authority, or other expenditure with or to an entity, or targeted to a specific State, locality or Congressional district, other than through a statutory or administrative formula-driven or competitive awarded process."The sponsoring Senators state that spending of tax dollars should be based on merit alone and ending earmarks would eliminate waste and help to bring about a secure economic future.
James Oberstar (D-MN), with 35 years in the House and as outgoing Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (T&I), said that the importance of earmarks grew as the surface transportation bill costs climbed during the 1980's. "The argument at the time was if you don't give members some say in how these dollars are spent, they're not going to vote," Oberstar said. But he noted that prior to the '80's, bills succeeded without any earmarks at all.Some lawmakers endorsing an earmark ban are suggesting there may be some accommodation for transportation infrastructure projects; however, Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) said he doubted there would be room in the GOP moratorium to carve out exceptions for infrastructure earmarks: "It's been done a long time, but I think that era's probably ended."John Mica (R-FL) is expected to become the new Chairman of T&I and he has stated that the issue will have to be decided on a case-by-case basis and he has discussed this issue with GOP leaders. He said, "There are some bills that require some legislative language to direct the funds, otherwise you're just writing a blank check to the administration."
My question is will this really hold water? The political system to date has been built on bringing home the bacon, or in this case legislative pork. I can see them banning earmarks and coming up with another way or just another name for the same purpose.
In reality what is needed is a long term fix for the entitlement programs that we have today. Will seniors riot in the streets when eventually the house of cards collapses and the "socialist state" that Republicans support (you can tell I'm annoyed) must be trimmed? There is a great quote by Winston Churchill that I'm saving for another time. Something about how we Amercians can't seem to solve anything until we've tried everything but the right thing in the first place.
Emergency management has gotten its share of earmarks overtime. New Emergency Operations Centers, etc.
