President Bush’s decision to challenge lawmakers on earmarks comes only days after House Republicans made their own pledge to give up pork projects. At their retreat last Friday in West Virginia, House GOP leaders released a letter calling on Speaker Nancy Pelosi to issue an immediate moratorium on earmarks and to appoint a bipartisan, bicameral joint committee to reform the earmark process and eliminate wasteful spending. The two moves, while not as aggressive as some conservatives had hoped, refocus attention on an issue that has tarnished the image of Congress …
President Bush will issue an executive order tomorrow that directs federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not voted on by lawmakers and included in a law approved by Congress. It’s a long-overdue step by the administration to curtail earmarks, but falls short of what conservatives had hoped Bush would do. Bush’s maneuver will apply only to future earmarks, subjecting them to votes and greater transparency. However, it does nothing to block the nearly 10,000 earmarks included in the omnibus spending bill passed last month. The White House …
Lawmakers may not be giving up earmarks en masse, but the negative stigma of pork-barrel spending has rubbed off on some members of Congress. In the Senate, conservative champion Jim DeMint and veteran appropriator Ted Stevens clashed openly during a meeting late last year. DeMint acknowledged that his quest to end earmarks has earned him “a lot of enemies” within his own party. Over in the House, DeMint’s message appears to be gaining traction. Take recent remarks from Rep. Tom Price of Georgia, for example. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, …
The Politico reports today that fiscal conservatives face several hurdles in their quest to end earmarks, not the least of which is that “Democrats last year actually approved fewer earmarks than Republicans did when they ran Congress.” A closer look at the numbers reveals that isn’t exactly true. Liberals are comparing the fiscal 2008 total of 11,043 to the fiscal 2005 total of 13,997. What they don’t tell you is that this year’s number is the second highest on record and it’s a sharp increase from the past two years. …
Just days after releasing a plan to reduce government spending, Fred Thompson continued his assault on earmarks, promising today that if elected president he would sign an executive order canceling lawmakers’ pork-barrel projects. President Bush is considering the idea, which is strongly opposed by congressional appropriators but supported by fiscal conservatives. Thompson fielded questions from bloggers during a conference call this afternoon. He was asked if he would issue an executive order instructing federal agencies to ignore the nearly 10,000 earmarks in the omnibus spending bill that was enacted in …
A day after his victory in the New Hampshire primary, Sen. John McCain spoke with bloggers about a variety of issues, including the option of a presidential executive order canceling earmarks in the omnibus spending bill. Erick Erickson of RedState posed the question to the Arizona senator, who has long been a critic of pork-barrel spending. Here is the exchange, courtesy of Jim Geraghty of National Review: Erick Erickson: Senator Coburn wants investigation into Don Young’s appropriation got back into bill after it had been stripped out. Would you support …
Picking up on the theme laid out by Heritage’s Mike Franc last week in Human Events, today John Fund writes in the Wall Street Journal about President Bush’s legacy on fiscal responsibility: This week President Bush will make one of the most important decisions of his remaining time in office. It won’t get headlines or lead the news, but it could play a major role in deciding whether this country ever gets any kind of grip on the constantly growing federal budget. Fund’s column comes at a critical moment. The …
