CAGW Irate Over Democratic Leadership’s Cynical Shell Game at Taxpayers’ Expense 

Washington, D.C. - Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) today blasted the Senate leadership for its recent furtive attempts to roll back and undermine the earmark transparency and accountability rules that Congress just enacted.  Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is leading the charge to narrowly interpreting the new earmark disclosure rules so that only earmarks included in appropriations bills will be subject to challenges on the floor, even though a large percentage of congressional pork is tucked into the conference reports for authorization and tax bills, as well.  The new interpretation directly contradicts the understanding of those who supported the new disclosure provisions, who were particularly incensed about the spending items which are often “air dropped” into conference reports at the last minute.

“All this talk that the House and Senate Democrats have been peddling to the media about a remarkable reduction in congressional earmarks is nothing but propaganda.  All indications are that members of Congress, particularly the usual spendthrift suspects in the Senate, intend to lard up federal spending bills as industriously as ever, and hide some of it from the public,” said CAGW Tom Schatz.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) forced the Senate leadership to divulge its plans by bringing a point of order challenging a $2 billion worth of earmarks stuffed into the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) discovered the gutting of the earmark reform rules The conference phase has always been a favorite dumping ground for earmarks and the creative interpretations of the new transparency and disclosure rules just guarantees that the majority of the pork will be slipped in during the final phases of the legislative businesses and mostly in authorizing and tax bills. 

Ctizens Against Government Waste is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.