The most ethical Congress deadlocked on earmarks
The Democrats (in the person of Nancy Pelosi) established the lowest bar possible by promising “the most ethical Congress ever” if Americans would give them the majority this year in Congress. That’s not hard to promise, really – how hard is it to be cleaner than a groundhog? Slimmer than a hippo? And they may be the most ethical Congress ever, for all I know, but I don’t think the American voters want to grade something like ethics in Congress on a sliding scale in 2008.
But, anyway, this “most ethical Congress ever” is deadlocked to a standstill on the issue of earmarks – earmarks are how politicians get reelected by paying off their constitutency with public works projects. Mainly useless public works projects like bridges that go nowhere built in one state with the tax dollars from the other states. Projects that local governments don’t feel are worthy of spending local taxes to build.
Earmarks are why everything in West Virginia is named “Robert C. Byrd” – after all of the useless crap that Senator Byrd forced the Federal government to build in that State.
Well, earmarks are the way that Democrats held on the House for more than 50 years – despite the fact that their majority voted against stuff like the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1964, the fact that they approved the Democrat President’s combat forces being introduced into Vietnam in 1965, despite the fact that they raised taxes so high that the upper marginal tax rate was 70% by the time Ronald Reagan became President. Earmarks kept them in office despite the fact that they pretty near destroyed the country. Anyone remember the debt Congress ran up before the Republicans took over in 1995 and dragged Bill Clinton kicking and screaming into fiscal responsibility?
Well Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma tells us, in the pages of the Wall Street Journal yesterday, what happened to Pelosi’s legislation;
When we considered ethics and earmark reform in January, Sen. Jim DeMint (R., S. C.) ingeniously forced our chamber to vote on a strong earmark-reform package — written by none other than House Speaker Pelosi herself. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid initially blocked the “DeMint/Pelosi” amendment, but after it was “modified” in a face-saving exercise it passed largely intact.
The DeMint/Pelosi language would disclose backdoor earmarks, often called report language earmarks, that are tucked away in non-binding, staff-written appropriations committee reports. Ninety-five percent of all earmarks are written as “coercive suggestions” to agencies in these explanatory reports that accompany bills. DeMint/Pelosi would make public the sponsors of earmarks, requiring members to file a public disclosure statement stating that neither they nor their spouse will benefit financially from a pork project. Finally, it would give members new procedural tools to block bills that violate these rules.
However, the underlying legislation, S.1, a central Democratic campaign promise, has gone nowhere since it passed five months ago. House and Senate conferees have not even begun meeting to iron out a final bill. Each day, it looks more like another expired promise.
Sen. Reid and top Senate Democrats have had two other opportunities to enact Ms. Pelosi’s earmark reform language. They blocked both attempts, arguing that ethics reform must be done comprehensively, not in a piecemeal fashion — conveniently making the perfect the enemy of the good and doable. Some members of Congress seem to be hoping the public will lose interest in earmark reform. That isn’t likely. Voters and taxpayers continue to be enraged — Congress’s approval rating is an abysmal 27%, in part because reform hasn’t happened. Presidential politics will keep the issue front and center, and the army of bloggers who have long led on this issue are ratcheting up their criticism of the status quo.
Good old Harry Reid again. That spineless little goofball. So, apparently, because they can’t restrain themselves, the San Francisco Chronical writes that the House, even though they’ve passed the earmark reform bill, have inserted 33,000 earmarks in this year’s spending bills;
Republicans cried foul over a plan by Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., for the House to pass all of the dozen spending bills without any earmarks.
Obey said House members from both parties — even while expressing concern about rising government spending — had inundated his committee with 33,000 earmark requests. He said it would take the committee’s staff four weeks to study all those pork barrel requests and pare them to a manageable level.
Obey proposed to put the earmarks into the bill as the House prepares to confer with the Senate to reconcile the two chambers’ different versions of the spending bills. Obey promised to disclose the list of the earmarks a month before such a conference, which Democrats hope to hold by late summer, so members and the public will have time to scrutinize and react to the projects.
Well, the Washington Times’ Eric Pfeiffer writes that Republicans scored a small victory over Democrats – and a victory for the American taxpayer;
   The Democrats had planned to allow earmarks only during the conference process, when a limited number of lawmakers from each chamber meet to hammer out differences between the bills passed, while barring them during committee hearings and on the floor.
    Under current rules, earmarks must be made public while an appropriations bill is going through each chamber. Republicans complained that allowing earmarks to be added during conference undermines their “sunshine” reforms and they claimed victory last night.
    “Democratic leaders finally surrendered to our demands because supporting secret earmarks in appropriations bills is indefensible and the American people won’t stand for it,” said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican.
    “House Republicans worked together to demand an end to slush funds for secret earmarks and the right to challenge wasteful spending on the House floor — and we won,” Mr. Boehner said.
    As a result of the compromise, several of the House appropriations bills will now be delayed until more than 32,000 requested earmarks can be publicly disclosed before coming to the House for a vote.
Imagine that – the elected representatives of the American people wanted to spend our money without telling us how they planned on spending it. I’m not blaming Democrats exclusively in this – Republicans are just as guilty of doing the same damn thing in the last twelve years. What I am blaming is the system – and the voters.
Voters have come to expect giveaways from the government, and they reward politicians who give them stuff – not neccessarily the people who come to Washington to protect us from foreign enemies, or protect us from local whackos.
The House of Representatives was supposed to made up of ordinary people off the street who wanted to do their part for the country and return to private life. Instead we built Congress a rich retirement plan that rewards them for longterm service, so naturally, they’re going to do everything in their power to stay in those jobs and reap the financial rewards instead of reaping the philosophical rewards and getting the Hell back to real life.
The Washington Post today, writes about the wealthy local politicians in the Metro DC area and the one that really got me was DC’s delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton;
In the District, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) reported assets valued at $823,036 to $2.2 million, including annuities and other retirement investments.
For what? She can’t vote in Congress. All she can do lobby Congress for the interests of the District, yet she’s got the net worth of the annual income of about 50 of her constituents. For doing what? Helping former Mayor Williams getting that stupid “Taxation without representation” slogan put on license plates? That’s the only thing I’ve seen her do in the last eight years, besides complain that no one told her that the Federal Government sent all of it’s employees home on 9-11.
We’ve come to expect experienced people in our legislatures and executive offices, but I’m not convinced that we need people with experience more than we need people with common sense and a common touch.
