Will Obama Call On DEMs To Join GOP’s Total Earmark Ban?

Rep. John Boehner, R-OH: For millions of Americans, the earmark process in Congress has become a symbol of Washington’s out-of-control spending.  Last month – on March 11^th, to be exact – House Republicans adopted an immediate, unilateral ban on all earmarks. This marked an important step towards bringing fundamental change to the way Congress spends taxpayers’ hard-earned money.

Now, in addition to being “essentially the sole purveyors of pork-barrel projects,” House Democrats are “struggling” to come up with a plan to tackle our skyrocketing deficits.  Theymay not even adopt a budget.  With our record $12.8 trillion national debt on pace to exceed the size of our economy in the next two years, we are just about out of road to kick the can down.

That’s why House Republicans are unveiling a resolution today authored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) that calls on Democrats to join Republicans’ total earmark ban and use the savings to reduce the deficit:

“House Republicans on Thursday plan to introduce a resolution to ratchet up the pressure on Democrats to join the GOP in a yearlong earmark ban. The resolution, authored by Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and backed by House Republican leadership, will express a ‘sense of the House’ that Democrats should implement an earmark moratorium and use the money that it saves to decrease discretionary spending. It will also call for establishment of a bipartisan, bicameral committee that would vet and overhaul ‘the budgetary, spending and earmark processes.” (Roll Call, 4/21/10)

In the first presidential debate in 2008, then-Sen. Obama touted the fact that he adopted a personal moratorium on earmark requests until the system could be cleaned up.  That is the same position, in effect, that House Republicans have adopted right now.  Here’s what the President said at that debate:

“. . . [T]he earmarks process has been abused, which is why I suspended any requests for my home state, whether it was for senior centers or what have you, until we cleaned it up.  And [Sen. McCain is] also right that often times lobbyists and special interests are the ones that are introducing these kinds of requests, although that wasn't the case with me.”

And in his 2010 State of the Union Address, President Obama said Congress has taken some steps to fix the earmark process – a questionable assertion – but added that “restoring the public trust demands more” be done.

If President Obama was sincere about more needing to be done to reform earmarking, will he urge Democrats to adopt an earmark moratorium just as he did, support the Goodlatte resolution, and call on Speaker Pelosi to schedule it for a vote?

---

Tags: earmarks, ban, US House, President Obama, John Boehner To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!