Let’s certainly hope that Republicans have learned their lesson about spending like Democrats. Let’s hope that they’re back to being a reform-minded political force. This John Boehner op-ed foretells of a step in the right direction.

I’ve never made a secret of my distaste for worthless pork. Just a few months after being elected as majority leader last year, we enacted comprehensive reforms that brought the earmark process out into broad daylight. All taxpayer-funded earmarks had to be publicly disclosed and subject to challenge and debate. If you sponsor a project, we argued, you ought to be willing to put your name on it and defend it, and if not, you shouldn’t ask taxpayers to pay for it. These reforms were the right thing to do, and they still are.

The Democratic majority came to power in January promising to do a better job on earmarks. They appeared to preserve our reforms and even take them a bit further. I commended Democrats publicly for this action.

Unfortunately, the leadership reversed course. Desperate to advance their agenda, they began trading earmarks for votes, dangling taxpayer-funded goodies in front of wavering members to win their support for leadership priorities.

The Democrats’ retreat began quietly, with passage of a “continuing resolution” in February that contained hidden earmarks. It steadily became more blatant. A troop funding bill was loaded with pork-barrel spending for things like spinach and peanuts, which one top Democrat publicly conceded was only in the bill to buy votes. Members were denied the ability to challenge individual earmarks on the House floor, stepping back from our original reforms and leaving members with no way to force a floor debate and vote on any earmark, even if it violated the rules or was particularly egregious.

David Obey started the slide by telling appropriators not to include earmarks until the conference committee:

Rather than including specific pet projects, grants and contracts in legislation as it is being written, Democrats are following an order by the House Appropriations Committee chairman to keep the bills free of such earmarks until it is too late for critics to effectively challenge them.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., says those requests for dams, community grants and research contracts for favored universities or hospitals will be added to spending measures in the fall. That is when House and Senate negotiators assemble final bills to send to President Bush.

Such requests total billions of dollars.

This could be a winning issue for the GOP because it would provide a stark contrast as to which is the reform-minded political party. The last thing John Murtha, Jim Oberstar or Robert Byrd want is transparency with regards to earmarks. It isn’t a stretch to think that John Murtha hates earmark transparency as much as vampires hates wooden stakes.

The RNC, NRCC and the NRSC should make reform a major part of their campaign next year because Democrats have stumbled so badly on the issue. I can’t say that their failure to enact effective earmark reform is the reason why voters give the 110th Congress awful ratings but it’s obvious that it isn’t helping.

Here in Minnesota, we’re making Jim Oberstar’s earmarks a big issue because his earmarks took money out of the transportation budget just so he could build some bike trails. They’ll be effective because we’re pointing out how earmarks steal money from higher priority items.

Under the procedures of the current House leadership, members still cannot force a debate or vote on any earmark in any non-appropriations bill that comes to the floor. This flawed system is ripe for abuse. It steps backward from the reforms Republicans implemented last year and makes a mockery of Democrats’ promise to run a more transparent and accountable Congress.

Last summer, I attended a fundraiser for Michele Bachmann. Then-Speaker Dennis Hastert was the featured guest. After the formal part of the event, I had the good fortune to talk with him. I started by saying that anyone that thinks that Democrats were agents of change were either ill-informed or delusional. Speaker Hastert agreed, saying that Charlie Rangel, who’s been there 40 years, John Dingell, who’s been there 50 years and numerous others who’d been there 30+ years, shouldn’t be considered as anything other than agents of the status quo.

On June 12, I and other GOP leaders introduced legislation that would fully restore our reforms and require all earmarks in all types of bills, tax, appropriations, or authorizing, to be publicly disclosed and subject to challenge and open debate on the floor.

Since then I’ve repeatedly asked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to work with us to correct this loophole, but there has been no action. Left with no other option, I filed a discharge petition in the House to force a vote on our reforms. Once this petition receives 218 member signatures, House rules require the majority to bring it to the House floor for an up-or-down vote.

This is Nancy Pelosi’s biggest nightmare. That petition isn’t something that Nancy Pelosi, John Murtha or David Obey want to succeed. If they get 218 signatures for this discharge petition, Democrats will be forced to either abandon their most effective vote-getting tool or defend an indefensible policy.

Congratulations to the GOP for taking steps back to their refomist roots. There’s still more than needs to be done but they’re heading in the right direction.

Technorati Tags: John Boehner, Earmarks, Reformers, Discharge Petition, Dennis Hastert, GOP, John Murtha, David Obey, James Oberstar, Nancy Pelosi, Election 2008

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

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1. The best way to get America back on track is to elect Ron Paul.

   Comment by Hat Pines — September 27, 2007 @ 9:59 am

2. (Ron Paul is an idiot, but what else would one expect from Hat Pines?)

   I would tend to have more faith in what Boehner said in his column if all the bills in Congress didn’t come sliding out of the halls from all the pork inserted by both donkeys and jackass-wannabees.

   Soon as that happens, sir, come back and tell us what a good job the Republicans are doing. Until then, remember what Confucius is purported to have said: ‘Tis better to keep your silence and seem the fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

   Comment by Carlos — September 28, 2007 @ 10:04 pm