As we’ve noted several times this year, there is a concerted effort to overturn the earmark ban in the House and reinstate some form of this onerous practice. Some conservatives might fall prey to the argument that we should focus our attention on the big-ticket items rather than the chump change that is spent on earmarks. That would be a serious mistake. If the practice | Read More »
On Tuesday, the House will be voting on a banal and non-controversial omnibus land use bill, H.R. 2578. Honestly, there are much bigger fish to fry, especially as the Senate begins to tackle the $1 trillion farm bill along with over 70 amendments. However, there is one provision in this bill that is worth highlighting, as it exemplifies the culture of quid-pro-quo parochial handouts that | Read More »
There’s an enduring rule in all aspects of life that is very applicable to conservatives in politics. Whenever you achieve a rare, hard-fought victory, you do everything possible to ensure that the victory stays intact. The House-adopted earmark ban is one of our biggest achievements over the past decade. As such, we must not reinstate the practice of passing Miscellaneous Tariff Bills (MTBs), which are | Read More »
Promoted from the diaries. The 2010 election spurred hundreds of Americans to call for a change in the direction our nation was taking. They were sick of the reckless spending of the Democrat-controlled Congress and they wanted their representative to be above the culture of corruption in Washington, D.C. As a result, November saw 87 new Republicans elected to the House of Representatives with a | Read More »
It seems that every week in Washington brings forth another story of Republicans trying to abjure the moratorium on earmark. On Friday, the Hill posted an article on the latest and greatest from the earmarxists: Culberson says he’s been “pounding” the leadership to move on the reforms, as well as “educating” his colleagues on the “urgency” of the situation. “This is an evolving conversation … | Read More »
It’s becoming clear that many rank-and-file members of the House Republican Conference are chomping at the bit to resurrect earmarks after a two-year moratorium. Some are complaining that earmarks cede authority to the executive branch; others are lamenting the lack of “grease” to facilitate passage of statist legislation; still others are trying to push miscellaneous tariff bills, which violate the rules of the earmark ban. | Read More »
The Republican-controlled House is currently operating under a moratorium on earmarking. But if several GOP earmarxists have their say, this will change in the near future. Throughout the past decade, most of the arguments against earmarks have been focused on wasteful spending, corruption, cronyism, and self-ingratiating monuments. Robert Byrd’s monuments and the Bridge to Nowhere became symbols for such bad behavior. To that end, even | Read More »
From the diaries. . . Rick Santorum makes an excellent point that “past performance really does indicate future results.” I completely agree—but not just “in Mitt Romney’s case.” Rick Santorum became the third-highest ranking Republican in the Senate in 2001 at a time when Republicans inherited balanced budgets, surpluses, and conservative, pro-life majorities. Senator Santorum and his big spending GOP allies proceeded to squander this | Read More »
If the House highway bill is an excrement sandwich, the Senate version is…well, it’s a lot worse. The one saving grace of the bill was that it supposedly did not contain any earmarks. Well, indeed there is one earmark in the bill, and it’s directed to Nevada. The earmark is ensconced in the bill very cleverly. On page 463 of the bill (lines 8-14), it | Read More »
Senators Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) learned a valuable lession today about member’s desire to go back to the practice of earmarking pet projects. Toomey and McCaskill offered an Amendment to the STOCK Act that would have created a new Senate point of order against earmarks in bills. They were met with bipartisan opposition to this common sense idea.
It’s another week in the Senate, and there’s another battle over earmarks. Senators Toomey and McCaskill are proposing an amendment to the STOCK Act (“insider trading bill”S. 2038) to permanently ban earmarks in the Senate. Not surprisingly, there is pushback from Harry Reid…and a number of Republicans as well. As always, there are those who argue that earmarks are just inconsequential “drop in the bucket” | Read More »
USA Today reported this week that billions in earmarks remain tucked into the funding measure that keeps the federal government running for the remainder of the fiscal year. Congress is debating right now how much to cut from the measure, yet these secret earmarks are not being openly discussed by members of Congress. That’s unfortunate. Earmarks should be low hanging fruit for the cost-conscious legislator. | Read More »
I don’t know why he’s bothering to yell at the President over this, though: the question of whether Harry Reid has the ability to get earmarks passed into legislation was abruptly settled last November. The House has banned them, and in case anybody was wondering whether the Republican base considers that ban to encompass the conference process where the differences between the Senate and House | Read More »
From the diaries by lexington_concord… A local news item caught my attention yesterday, on San Francisco’s CBS5 television station. It concerned the city’s municipal transport system, or ‘Muni’. While the transport organization rumbles on with a $21 million deficit, new ticket kiosks are being built at two locations. Looks like possibly a good idea at first glance. Sell more tickets, more passengers, more fares, more | Read More »
Download Podcast | iTunes | Podcast Feed On today’s edition of Coffee and Markets, Brad Jackson and Ben Domenech are joined by Francis Cianfrocca to discuss what the dead $1.1 Trillion Omnibus spending bill means for small businesses, and what really started the financial crisis. We’re brought to you as always by BigGovernment and Stephen Clouse and Associates. If you’d like to email us, you | Read More »
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