Last year’s earmark pledges are…well, so last year

Stephen Dinan at the Washington Times writes that all of those pledges Congress members made last year are not being renewed this year;

Pork is back on the menu and the appetite is growing on Capitol Hill, where the number of lawmakers voluntarily swearing off earmarks for pet projects has fallen by nearly half compared with last year.

Just 17 of the 41 House members who promised not to request earmarks last year have made the same pledge this year, according to a survey of all congressional offices by the fiscal conservative action group Club for Growth. The holdouts include some top Republican leaders and all five House Democrats who had forsworn earmarks last year.

The big one is;

Henry Waxman, the biggest critic of Bush Administration spending, will skip his pledge;

Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, who was the first House Democrat to swear off earmarks last year, has not made a similar pledge this year, according to the Club for Growth’s survey. Mr. Waxman’s office didn’t return a call seeking comment.

A call to the office of Sen. Mark Udall, Colorado Democrat, also was not returned, though he made a vow to swear off earmarks last year as a House member, and also did so in the middle of his Senate campaign.

Funny how the Democrats make those pledges during the campaign and then forget about them, like most of the media. The Washington Times is doing a great job so far this year watching the Administration and Congress as opposed to the so-called MSM which is floundering in it’s own morass.

Category: Politics