...that, for once, I wholeheartedly support:
{...}Just before Christmas, Congress sent Mr. Bush a $516 billion omnibus spending bill stuffed with 8,993 special-interest earmarks. To make matters worse, most of the earmarks aren't even in the language of the law itself. They were slipped into a 900-page "committee report" that represented the wish-lists of the Senate and House appropriations committees. Almost no one got a chance to read that report before the budget was passed late at night and with barely a day for members to review it.Mr. Bush agreed to sign the budget but said he was disappointed at Congress's failure to overcome its earmark addiction. He announced he was asking his budget director, Jim Nussle, "to review options for dealing with the wasteful spending in the omnibus bill."
What Mr. Bush knows, and Congress doesn't want the taxpayers to know, is that the vast majority of the offending earmarks--the ones that aren't part of the actual budget law and were instead "air-dropped" into the committee report--aren't legally binding. A Dec. 18 legal analysis by the Congressional Research Service found that most of the committee reports have not been formally passed by both houses and "presented" to the President for signing, and thus have not become law. "President Bush could ignore the 90% of earmarks that never make it to the floor of the House or Senate for a vote," says Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who has read the CRS report. "He doesn't need a line-item veto."
Federal agencies would still be obligated to spend the dollars appropriated by Congress. But they could use the money higher priorities that would benefit all taxpayers, rather than on favors for special interests or political donors. For example, the $700,000 for a bike trail in Minneapolis could be used to rebuild the collapsed bridge in that city and to strengthen others. In addition, under such an executive order, future earmarks would likely have to go through committee hearings and would receive much greater scrutiny and publicity than they do now. {...}
{my emphasis}
What's needed, apparently, is an Executive Order, signed by President Bush, that would deny funding for all the earmarked pork that, ahem, was never passed into law in the first place. If you would like the president to wield some control over pork-happy members of Congress---you know, because it's his job to do so--I would highly recommend calling the White House at 202-456-1111 or sending an email to comments@whitehouse.gov. The more people that chime in, the better the chances President Bush will actually do something about this.
Bush has nothing to lose by not funding these earmarks, and he could actually strike a lasting blow for fiscal conservatism that would live well beyond his presidency. He has no grand programs making their way through congress this legislative session, so Congress doesn't have anything to hold over him. He could make a bold, legacy-building move here. I sincerely hope he avails himself of it. I always thought Bush has the possibility to turn into a budgetary slash-and-burn president. The war has kept him from keeping many of the promises he made during his election and re-election campaigns, but there's no time like the present for him to step up and live up to his potential in this regard.
Call him or email him and tell him that not funding earmarks that were not passed into law is the right thing to do.
Posted by Kathy at January 7, 2008 09:03 AM | TrackBack