Taxes & Budget

Once upon a time not so very long ago the first woman Speaker of the House was pledging to end the war in Iraq and end the "culture of corruption" demonstrated by all those earmarks during the Republican's leadership. After a year on the job, she has broken both promises.

Thankfully, the just-claim-defeat strategy of Pelosi and her Senate counterpart Harry Reid failed. Harry Reid declared last April "this war is lost" and both leaders staged numerous attempts to embarrass President Bush and foment the palpable war-weariness they believed would enhance their majority. By trying to establish a fixed date for withdrawal and withhold funding, their antics played directly into the objectives of the enemy, emboldening the insurgents, and endangering the lives and the mission of our troops.

Regardless of the Democrats' efforts to the contrary, the "Surge" strategy deployed under the command of General David Petraeus is working in Iraq. Violence is down and Iraqis are assuming ever more of the responsibility of their own security.

The public's disdain for congressional pork-barrel earmarks clearly hurt Republican election results in 2006. The "bridge to nowhere" entered the vernacular of the American electorate and embodied all that voters despised about politics – overspending, scandals, corruption – all of which Pelosi in particular pledged to clean up with a new era of ethics when she became Speaker.

The GOP had actually already gotten the message, albeit too late in the mind of the electorate. Late in 2006 new rules for earmarks were adopted subjecting them to regular legislative scrutiny rather than the blind silence known as "air mailing" member projects into massive compromise funding bills known as conference reports. The new rules would have allowed any member to call to question an earmark and forced sponsors to identify and defend spending requests in the light of day.

Regardless of some posturing suggesting she might even ban earmarks entirely, once the Speaker's gavel was in her hand and her Democrat committee chairman were in place, campaign promises went out the door.

Failing to individually pass the dozen or so appropriations bills required to keep the federal government running, Pelosi-Reid bundled a $516 billion omnibus monster together just before members were preparing to leave town for the holidays in December. This single piece of legislation contained 8,993 earmarks – just short of the total for the entire legislative year of 2006 that was supposedly so damnable. Worse, as revealed by John Fund in the Wall Street Journal, members had "barely a day" to even review the massive printed omnibus conference report, much less to review the 696-page report containing the earmarks, before the late night vote was called.

That provides a congressman's staff just enough time for one last check to make sure their boss's earmarks are stuffed inside and to call the awaiting lobbyists with the "good news." There certainly isn't any time or bother with scrutiny of the other 9,000 earmarks, although they would vote on them within hours.

And make no mistake about it – members vote "aye" on appropriations bills containing their own pork. It's the oldest and most effective vote-buying strategy on the Hill, and leadership understands it. Just try to find a congressman who would vote against the transit project, cultural center, or bike path that they had specifically requested for funding regardless of the flaws in the appropriations for Veterans, Agriculture, Education, or Health and Human Services.

According to Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), of the 8,993 earmarks, 90% were of the "air-mail" variety that had received no legislative scrutiny whatsoever, and he believes President Bush has the right to veto them.

A new legal analysis by the Congressional Research Service agrees with Sen. DeMint concluding "because the language of committee reports do not meet the procedural requirements of Article I of the Constitution – specifically, bicameralism and presentment – they are not laws and, therefore, are not legally binding on executive agencies."

Something must be brewing in the White House over this pork-fest. The President's Budget Director Rob Portman (former Republican member of the House) earlier this year issued a precedent setting statement by instructing federal agencies that they could ignore earmark language. "Unless a project or activity is specifically identified in statutory text, agencies should not obligate funds on the basis of earmarks contained in Congressional reports or documents," Portman wrote in his memo.

The 8,993 earmarks in the Pelosi-Reid omnibus bill are 563% more than the entirety of congressional earmarks one decade ago. Federal lobbyists who grovel on Capitol Hill to secure earmarks for "the folks back home" have more than doubled to over 4,000 in the last five years. One must wonder, "Where does it all end?"

All member earmarks are not by definition evil, but certainly any process that does not subject them to scrutiny is flawed and invites corruption. Fund believes "earmarks by the thousands result in scandals by the dozens." The scandal-plagued 109^th Congress and the poster-boy of corruption, Jack Abramoff, should have taught Congress a lesson, but addictions are hard to beat.

Pork appears to be the drug of choice on Capitol Hill and both parties have demonstrated an inability to avoid it. President Bush has before him an opportunity to force Congress to mend their ways and sober up. Such Presidential courage may be the only way that Congress gets the message. Conservatives have applauded Bush's tenacity throughout 2007 over spending restraint, and finally won a hard fought victory over the Democrats' insistence for more spending.

With the Omnibus sitting on his desk, Bush has publicly stated he would sign the within-budget portions of the legislation, but he has asked his Budget Director Jim Nussle "to review options for dealing with the wasteful spending in the omnibus bill." Bush could go a long way for the cause of Good Government, for lifting the spirits of the GOP faithful, and his Presidential legacy if he tossed the unlawful earmarks in the trash.