California Conservative

There’s an old saying in politics that if you’re about to be run out of town, it’s best to get out in front and pretend that you’re leading a parade. That’s what looks like Rahm Emanuel is attempting to do with this NY Times op-ed. Earmark ‘reform’ is the subject of Rep. Emanuel’s op-ed. In it, he claims that Democrats have reformed earmarks, which is a joke considering that they’re the party of Robert Byrd, John Murtha and Jim Oberstar.

Putting all earmarks in the same boat, as critics often do, distorts the debate and does a disservice to the public. Not all earmarks are equal. For six years, some members of Congress provided secret earmarks for lobbyists in exchange for campaign contributions, foreign trips and, in some cases, outright bribes. The core of the problem was that the earmarks were hidden from the press and the public. There was no opportunity to review either their sponsorship or their merit before their passage.

The new Democratic Congress now requires that each earmark be fully described and its sponsor identified. Members of Congress who sponsor earmarks must certify that they have no personal financial interest in them. Any private entity that might benefit must be clearly reported. Each of these reforms is now mandatory, in stark contrast to previous practices.

It takes real chutzpah to say that the “new Democratic Congress now requires that each earmark be fully described and its sponsor identified” after David Obey voted for earmark reform, then refused to obey the rule he’d voted for:

Democrats are sidestepping rules approved their first day in power in January to clearly identify “earmarks’’, lawmakers’ requests for specific projects and contracts for their states, in documents that accompany spending bills.
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.

I don’t know how Rahm Emanuel can say that Democrats have cleaned up the earmark process after David Obey is caught ignoring the supposed reform measure that they’d passed. As the article says, billions of dollars of requests will be added to the bills in conference. I’d like Rep. Emanuel to explain how anything has changed. Simply put, this Democratic congress is a ‘business as usual’ bunch.

Let’s also remember that John Murtha threatened Rep. Mike Rogers on the House floor after Rogers challenged Murtha’s earmark of $23 million for the National Drug Intelligence Center in Johnstown, PA:

“I hope you don’t have any earmarks in the defense appropriation bill because they are gone and you will not get any earmarks now and forever,” Mr. Murtha allegedly told Mr. Rogers in a “loud voice.” He referred to the pet projects lawmakers often tuck into large spending bills.

“This is not the way we do things here,” Mr. Rogers replied. “Is that supposed to make me afraid of you?”

“That’s the way I do it,” Mr. Murtha said.

Does that sound like true earmark reform? If there was true earmark reform, John Murtha would have a nervous breakdown. He wouldn’t know how to function in the House. When Murtha threatened Mike Rogers, Murtha threatened a former FBI Special Agent investigating public corruption as a member of the Chicago Bureau’s organized crime unit. It isn’t smart to threaten FBI special agents, whether they’re retired or not.

It’s worth noting that most of John Murtha’s campaign contributions come from people working for companies that Murtha has directed earmarks towards.

Some members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, eschew earmarks. That is their right. But most members believe it is their prerogative and their duty to channel federal resources to important public purposes.

I wonder if Rep. Emanuel is referring to the earmarks that Jim Oberstar has put into the various transportation bills that have taken money from the Highway Trust Fund to build bike trails. If he wasn’t referring to that, then I wonder if he was referring to the earmarks that Alan Mollohan directed to charities that he created.

Emanuel’s comments notwithstanding, the Democrats’ version of earmark reform are just one reason why voters have turned against them. That said, here’s the biggest whopper that Emanuel told:

Bringing transparency and accountability to the earmark process is a significant reform, a pledge we made and a pledge we kept. And it’s one we’ve extended to lobbyists, by barring them from providing gifts or trips to members of Congress and by increasing reporting requirements for their meetings and their campaign money-raising activities. To overlook or dismiss the impact of these reforms adds to the public’s cynicism about government.

Technically, he’s right that they’ve kept the pledge. It’s worth noting, though, that they had to drag David Obey kicking and screaming to the table. If they were so intent on keeping their pledge to reform the earmark process, then why did it take an offer from Porkbusters, via Glenn Reynolds’ Instapundit, to sort through 36,000 earmarks?

Rep. David Obey says that there’s not time to look at the 36,000 earmark requests in the House.

Porkbusters is offering to help!

I read with interest news reports that you may only include earmarks in last-minute, un-amendable conference reports, as opposed to amendable House appropriations bills, because you and your staff reportedly need “extra time to evaluate the 36,000-plus earmark requests members have submitted to the Appropriations Committee this year.”

You have also been quoted you as saying: “I think we have a helluva lot more ability [to root out bad earmarks] than the individual working alone.”

Chairman Obey, I share your concern about unworthy projects receiving federal funding due to a lack of careful and thoughtful evaluation, and I agree that one individual working alone would have a very hard time completing this task in a timely manner.

Therefore, I would like to personally volunteer my time to help you and your staff in evaluating this year’s earmark requests.

As you know, Internet technology has made research faster and easier than at any previous time in human history. By releasing your 36,000 earmark requests publicly, I and other taxpayers across the country could work together in a cooperative effort to determine which Members of Congress may have financial conflicts attached to their earmark requests, which local projects may be unworthy of federal funding and which may have value to the taxpayers.

Thank you for your consideration of this matter. I and millions of my fellow taxpayers across America stand ready to help you evaluate these 36,000 earmarks requests. After all, we are the ones who are paying for these requested projects, the least we can do is help you evaluate their merit.

The best way to think of Emanuel’s op-ed is to think of it as perfect lining for the bottom of a bird cage. Otherwise, it’s a total waste of paper.

Technorati Tags: Earmark Reform, Rahm Emanuel, NY Times, John Murtha, David Obey, James Oberstar, Robert Byrd, Corruption, Democrats, Porkbusters

Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 25th, 2007 at 1:26 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Corruption, Domestic Policies, Liberals, Op-Ed, Special Interests, Washington, DC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.