Contact: Matt Lloyd
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PENCE OP-ED: EARMARKING REFORM
Washington,
Feb 5, 2008 -
Below is an Op-Ed published in the Washington Times today:
Earmarking
reform
February 5,
2008
By Mike Pence
Airplane pilots
know that when you're flying a plane and the gauges start telling you something
is wrong, the first thing you do is put the airplane on the ground, check out
the engine and figure out what's wrong.
After years of excess spending
and outright corruption, the gauges of federal spending in Washington are telling
the American people something is very wrong, especially when it comes to
earmarks. It is time to land the plane and fix the engine. It is time for an
earmark moratorium followed by fundamental reform.
Earmarking occurs
when a member of Congress requests funding for specific projects in their
districts and states. Such spending is as old as the republic itself. Under the
Constitution, Congress has the authority to spend the peoples' money in ways
both large and small. I have requested earmarked spending every year that I have
been in office.
However, directing spending in the form of earmarks must
be done wisely, openly and fairly. Earmarking in recent years has not met the
high standard the American people demand. The federal budget system, including
earmarking, is broken. Earmarking came of age under Republican control of
Congress with thousands of projects being added to bills that had never included
such spending. Public concern over spending was a major factor in the defeat of
the Republican majority in 2006.
Despite promises of reform from
Democrats when they won the Congressional majority, earmarking continues to
spiral out of control.Last year's Omnibus spending bill was more than 3,400
pages long, and it wasn't filed until after midnight on the very day the vote
was held. Members did not have time to review it.If they had, they would have
found that it contained wasteful earmark spending ranging from funding fruit fly
research to building swimming pools to providing for wine and culinary
centers.Most egregious, they would have found that nearly 300 unexamined
earmarks costing more than $800 million were dropped in at the last minute, in
the middle of the night, immune to public debate or scrutiny until after the
fact.
All spending bills passed in 2007 included some 11,000 earmarks.
Those earmarks totaled more than $14 billion in cost, and included wasteful
spending for items such as a $20 million ferry in Alaska to connect Anchorage
with Port MacKenzie — benefiting just 40 people who work in Port MacKenzie.
That, of course, followed the infamous Bridge to Nowhere earmark from the 2005
highway bill.The current system of earmarking allows this waste to continue. It
allows earmarks to be requested for projects hundreds of miles away from the
districts that the requesting member represents, and it has led to earmarks
being tied to public scandals and outright corruption.
I have been an
advocate for earmark reform for years and have led efforts by House
conservatives to enact budget process reforms under Republican majorities. I
have also supported bipartisan efforts to enact further earmark reforms under
Democratic control. And I have led by example. I have never traded my vote for a
funding request. One year ago, my office was among the first in Congress to post
all of my appropriations requests on my Web site. I have made every effort to
press for reform within the system, but I have come to the conclusion that
Congress must take dramatic action to restore public confidence in the federal
budget process.
After seeing House Democrats return to "earmarks as
usual," including hundreds of unexamined earmarks in recent spending bills, I
believe that the time for an earmark moratorium has arrived. And House
Republicans have risen to the challenge. Recently, Republicans in Congress took
a significant step toward earmark reform by challenging House Democrats to join
them in a "time-out" on earmarking. Republicans united behind a challenge for an
earmark moratorium and called for the establishment of a new select committee
that would conduct public hearings and make recommendations that will change the
way that Congress spends the people's money forever. By challenging House
Democrats to join in a bipartisan effort ending the current practice of
earmarking in Washington, House Republicans have thrown down
the gauntlet of reform.
Should Democrats refuse this bipartisan
challenge, choosing to defend the current system for earmark spending, they will
have dismissed the heartfelt concern of millions of Americans who long to see
integrity restored in the national legislature. If Democrats refuse to join us
in the cause of reform, Republicans will continue to press for an earmark
moratorium and fundamental reform. Nothing short of a full moratorium followed
by a public vetting of the current system will restore public confidence in our
federal budget.
America wants Congress to land the
plane, embrace a moratorium on earmarks and fix this broken system. Republicans
are leading this fight for fiscal discipline and reform. For the sake of the
nation, I sincerely hope our Democrat colleagues will soon follow.
Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, former
chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, currently serves as the
ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee's Middle East Subcommittee.
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