Republicans urge no earmarks in catch-all spending bill
Lawmakers are likely to try to pass full-year funding for discretionary programs in a single legislative package after the elections.
More than 50 Republicans, including House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, and other GOP leaders, Tuesday sent a letter to House Speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., beseeching her not to include any earmarks in catch-all omnibus spending legislation Democrats hope to pass after the election.
"We write to urge you at a minimum to resist the temptation of including earmarks in any ... post-election appropriations scenario," the letter said.
The letter was released by Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., a long-time crusader against spending directed by members toward pet causes.
Last week, before adjourning for the midterm elections, Congress passed a continuing resolution that funds the federal government through Dec. 3 at fiscal 2010 levels for most programs.
Congress has failed to pass any of the 12 annual spending bills that fund government programs. Lawmakers are likely to try to pass full-year funding for discretionary programs in a single legislative package.
The House passed only two spending bills: Transportation-Housing and Urban Development, and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs. The other 10 bills never made it beyond their subcommittees in the House Appropriations Committee.
The letter contends that there are thousands of earmarks worth about $3 billion in all 12 of the spending bills, and that Democrats are responsible for the lion's share because most House Republicans abstained from seeking earmarks this year.
A spokesman for Pelosi, Nadeam Elshami, insisted that Republican criticism on earmarks could not be taken seriously. He also noted that earmark reform was conspicuously absent from their "Pledge to America."
"Republicans have ignored their record of quadrupling earmarks when they were in charge, have offered nothing but rhetoric about earmark reforms and have stood in the way of our efforts to reform the process that brought about accountability, transparency, a significant reduction, and no earmarks to for-profit entities," Elshami said. He pointed to several procedures Democrats have put in place to make the process more transparent.
The GOP letter says that earmarks should be left out of the omnibus because the full House Appropriations Committee has not had a chance to review the bills in a full markup.
The Republicans point to one $300,000 earmark requested in one of the draft bills for the city of Bell, Calif., where eight current and former city officials have been arrested on charges they misappropriated city funds. Former city manager Robert Rizzo was making $787,638 per year in that position.
"At a minimum, taxpayers should be protected by from thousands of unvetted earmarks...being stuffed into any end-of-year appropriations measure and shielded from review," the letter concluded.