Senate Blocks Moratorium on Earmarks

AP via SFGate ^ | 3/13/8 | ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer

[SmithL]

Even with the backing of all three presidential candidates, Senate old-timers in both parties decisively killed a proposed one-year ban on lawmakers' home-state pet projects.

The 71-29 vote Thursday night against the earmark moratorium came as Congress pressed ahead with a budget plan that would saddle millions of Americans with higher tax bills in three years by allowing some of President Bush's tax cuts to die after he leaves office.

The House passed a $3 trillion federal budget plan that would provide generous increases to domestic programs but bring the government's ledger back into the black by letting all of Bush's tax cuts expire at the end of 2010 as scheduled.

The Senate endorsed extending $340 billion of Bush's tax cuts but balked continuing all of them.

All three major presidential candidates interrupted their campaigns to cast votes on the budget plan, which is nonbinding but highlights the difficult choices on taxes and spending facing the next president and Congress.

. . . The practice of inserting "earmarked" spending into legislation is seen as a birthright by lawmakers in both parties — and a right under the power of the purse awarded to Congress by the Founding Fathers.

Earmarks have exploded in number and cost in recent years, accompanied by charges of abuse and public outrage over egregious examples like the proposed "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska, which would have cost more than $200 million to serve an island with a population of about 50.

"This may be the last bastion in American where they don't get it. Americans are sick and tired of the way we do business in Washington," McCain told reporters afterward. "As president, I promise the American people ... the first earmarked, pork-barrel bill that comes across my desk, I'll veto it."

[Raymann]

Challenging Madison’s proposition for improvements to roads used in a system of national mail delivery. Jefferson wrote:

"Have you considered all the consequences of your proposition respecting post roads? I view it as a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of Congress & their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money. You will begin by only appropriating the surplus of the post office revenues; but the other revenues will soon be called into their aid, and it will be a scene of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always get most who are meanest."

[Piquaboy]

I do hope that you did not just discover that.

[Young Scholar]

Unsurprising. I should have noticed that right away—it’s not as though the government ever actually cuts spending for anything.

[pankot]

A horse was named Senator. Eventually most were murdered by
nutty Emperor. So much for SPQR.