Free Republic

Make It Jeff Flake! Help Fight Pork: Support Rep. Flake for the Appropriations Committee "With Roger Wicker being named a United States Senator, there is an opening on the Appropriations Committee for the U.S. House of Representatives. The Republicans get to fill the seat. The Republican leadership has a great opportunity to prove that it is serious about earmark reform and a conservative approach to spending. It's time to put some action behind their rhetoric." --RedState: The Road to Recovery Begins with Jeff Flake on Appropriations "In four terms in Congress, Mr. Flake has never sought a special bridge, courthouse,...

When it comes to nabbing pork hard-earned taxpayer money and giving it to cronies, Murtha remains king!Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense panel, has secured the most earmarked dollars in the 2008 military spending bill, followed closely by the panel’s ranking member Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.). Even though Young secured 52 earmarks, worth $117.2 million — and co-sponsored at least $27 million worth of others — Murtha’s 48 earmarks amount to a total of $150.5 million, according to a database compiled by the watchdog organization Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS). The House is expected to take...

Tonight I’m proud to report that the Senate unanimously passed S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006. The passage of this legislation is a triumph for transparency in government, for fiscal discipline, and for the bipartisan citizen journalism of the blogosphere. Without the efforts of ordinary Americans empowered by the Internet, including many hardworking members of the iFrist Volunteers, this legislation might easily have been successfully obstructed. Instead, the unprecedented synergy between online grassroots activists and Senate leadership provides a new model for participatory democracy in action. I look forward to reconciling S. 2590 with its...

By Rebecca Carr | Wednesday, August 30, 2006, 01:17 PM After much speculation, a staffer to Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, admitted to Cox Newspapers today that the senator is the lawmaker who placed a “secret hold” on legislation that would open up the obscure world of government contracting to public scrutiny. Until now, it was a political whodunnit as to who quietly blocked legislation introduced by Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., that would create a searchable database of government contracts, grants, insurance, loans and financial assistance, worth $2.5 trillion last year.

Blogosphere Unites in Pursuit of Masked Senator By Paul Kiel - August 28, 2006, 1:04 PM Who's trying to stop the government from telling its citizens where their tax dollars are being spent? Help find out. Just before the August recess, the Senate was set to vote on a bill introduced by Sens. Barack Obama (D-IL) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would create a public, searchable database of all federal grants and contracts. Envisioned as a Google-like website, it would provide free, immediate access the information, which can be alarmingly difficult to obtain. The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs...