According to The Hill, a newspaper that caters to Capitol Hill and politicos, conservative House Republicans, better known as the Republican Study Committee (RSC), are pushing for an immediate earmark ban for one year. This is different from the ban that the Republican leadership is pushing…they are calling for a one year moratorium but only if the Democrats sign on too.
Back in January, House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and the Republican Conference supported a plan that would create a bipartisan panel to study ways to reform the earmarking process. While the panel is studying how to institute reforms, all earmarks would be banned for a year for both Democrats and Republicans. Unfortunately, that idea has gone nowhere.
But Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), chairman of the RSC, wants to do more. He thinks the GOP Conference needs to get out in front on the earmark issue and to do it now, if there is to be any hope to regain the party’s fiscal bona fides and not lose any more seats. In fact the RSC announced an eight point plan in order to bring a renewed vision for the Republican Caucus.
Frankly, while many members of the RSC are certainly interested in cutting spending, many of their colleagues are not. Recent actions have proved this sad reality.
For example, in April, Leader Boehner announced the creation of the Fiscal Integrity Task Force or FIT. The goal of FIT is to put “fiscal integrity into government budgeting, taxing, and spending, and to demand that Congress run the federal government like a family budget.” Co-chairmen of FIT are Rep. Thaddeus McCotter (R-Mich.) and Kevin Brady (R-Texas) and there are 18 additional members on the task force. Yet, when given their first opportunity to show the public that Republicans had rediscovered their fiscal soul, 55 percent of FIT members voted for the bloated $300 billion Farm Bill. Worse, Co-Chairs McCotter and Brady, who should show some leadership on spending, not only voted for the bill, they voted to override the president’s veto.
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste and other taxpayer groups were so upset about it, they penned this letter.
Meanwhile, the RSC has enough votes to force a vote in the House Republican Conference on the earmark issue. It will probably happen sometime next week. The vote will be private and the pressure against it is powerful. Too many members like their pork. FIT Co-Chair McCotter has even stated that a one-size-fits-all earmark ban will backfire. That’s conservative leadership! NOT!
Taxpayers have reason to be skeptical when staggeringly expensive and wasteful proposals are being supported by a majority of key Republican legislators at the same time they are claiming they wish to bring fiscal sanity back to Capitol Hill.
Other taxpayer groups are following this issue on their blogs:
Filed under: Pork
[...] to my public outrage against the farm bill, the Swine Line lets us know what’s been cooking on Capitol Hill as far as fiscal (ir)responsibility. Even the reform committees are adrift in bacon grease leaking out of those pork [...]