CCAGW Praises GOP for All-Out Earmark Moratorium

(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) commended House Republicans for enacting a unilateral ban on congressional earmarks for fiscal year (FY) 2011, including those that are tariff- and tax-related.  The GOP’s move came one day after the House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) and Defense Subcommittee Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) announced that the committee would no longer accept earmark requests directed to for-profit entities.

“House Republicans have finally stepped up to rein in wasteful and corruptive earmarking spending,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz.  “This move has been a long time coming and tens of thousands of wasteful earmarks worth hundreds of billions of dollars have been enacted while taxpayers waited for authentic leadership from members of Congress.  For more than two decades, congressional earmarks have presented members with an engraved invitation into questionable, patently unethical, sometimes even criminal behavior.  The rush to buy votes in exchange for taxpayer-funded pork-barrel earmarks has been an enormous distraction from the taxpayers’ business.  It is time for members to refocus their energies on important national issues and cease the self-serving greed that has increasingly characterized the appropriations process,” said Schatz.

According to CCAGW’s database, earmarks have been on a downward trajectory over the last four years.  In FY 2006, Congress stuffed the appropriations bills with 9,963 earmarks totaling $29 billion.  In FY 2009, there were 10,160 earmarks worth $19.6 billion, a 32 percent reduction in terms of dollars.  In addition, during that same period, Congress began requiring that all earmarks be accompanied by the name of the sponsor, a significant improvement in the transparency of earmarks. 

In the Senate, longtime earmark foe Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) is sponsoring an amendment that would prohibit the consideration of any bill, joint resolution, conference report or message between the Houses that contains earmarks. If enacted the earmark moratorium would apply to FY 2010 and FY 2011 to ensure that all spending bills are earmark-free.  A two-thirds supermajority vote would be required to waive these rules.

“While there is much more to do to rein in wasteful spending, CCAGW congratulates the peerless Rep. Jeff  Flake (R-Ariz.) for his dogged opposition to the practice of earmarking.  He pushed his own party until they did the right thing, and his robust campaign to eliminate the scourge of earmarks is the very definition of leadership, “continued Schatz.  “The public’s obvious rage and frustration with Congress’s fiscally irresponsible behavior, coupled with the efforts of dozens of waste watchdogs, are finally bearing fruit.  This is the first step toward recapturing credibility, mending the fractured and dysfunctional budget process, and runaway wasteful spending,” concluded Schatz.

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

####