Earmark Cover-Up

Wall Street Journal / OpinionJournal.com ^ | March 26, 2007 | John Fund

[CutePuppy]

Earmark Cover-Up
The Congressional Research Service is helping its masters hide wasteful spending.

Nothing highlighted Congress's spending problem in last year's election more than earmarks, the special projects like Alaska's "Bridge to Nowhere" that members drop into last-minute conference reports leaving no opportunity to debate or amend them. Voters opted for change in Congress, but on earmarks it looks as if they'll only be getting more smoke and mirrors.

Democrats promised reform and instituted "a moratorium" on all earmarks until the system was cleaned up. Now the appropriations committees are privately accepting pork-barrel requests again. But curiously, the scorekeeper on earmarks, the Library of Congress's Congressional Research Service (CRS)--a publicly funded, nonpartisan federal agency--has suddenly announced it will no longer respond to requests from members of Congress on the size, number or background of earmarks. "They claim it'll be transparent, but they're taking away the very data that lets us know what's really happening," says Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn. "I'm convinced the appropriations committees are flexing their muscles with CRS."

Indeed, the shift in CRS policy represents a dramatic break with its 12-year practice of supplying members with earmark data. "CRS will no longer identify earmarks for individual programs, activities, entities, or individuals," stated a private Feb. 22 directive from CRS Director Daniel Mulhollan.

When Sen. Coburn and Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina submitted earmark inquiries recently, they were both turned down.

...

That is sophistry. The House rule making earmarks public, which was passed in January, doesn't apply to earmarks for fiscal year 2007...

And in any case, CRS works for Congress, so it is bizarre for it to claim work being done by the executive branch as a reason to deny members information it was happy to collect and release in the past.

...

[CutePuppy]

"What was up is down, and what was down is up" - Al Gore, 1992

[Darkwolf377]

Democrats promised reform and instituted "a moratorium" on all earmarks until the system was cleaned up.

I'm sure the MSM will be all over this broken promise. I also belive in UFOs.

[CutePuppy]

What's wrong with UFOs? The ones I saw were a lot more credible than media or Congresspersons.

[trumandogz]

I am not quite sure if I prefer Republican or Democratic earmarks.

[PizzaDriver]

If a committee member adds it; it is an "Earmark". If the Chair writes it, it should a "Camel's Nose".

Since the current Standard EXEMPTS "Chairpersons" from the Earmark Rules, We must demand "Camel's Nose" Rules!

[JoeGar]

Democrats are scum.

[Peach]

Mark for later read

[CutePuppy]

I am not quite sure if I prefer Republican or Democratic earmarks.

Well, from what I understand, there were earmarks from (for?) both Republicans and Democrats in GOP-run Congress and they were not hidden, and people were not prohibited "gestapo-style" from openly talking about them or discussing it with the media.