We're So Lucky To Have Those Reformers In The Majority!

[Kathianne]

Those evil earmarks that the Republicans allowed, well the Democrats promised to clean house, no pun intended. Links at site:

http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/node/2952


real-time investigation of money in Washington politics
Sign Up to Help the House Evaluate Earmarks

Our friend N.Z. Bear has a new sign up page on the Porkbusters site that allows citizens to volunteer to evaluate some of the 36,000 some earmarks flooding the House--so many that Rep. David Obey ☼, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, announced a while back that they couldn't possibly publish them all until the absolute end of the process--when it would have been too late to do anything about them--because of the time needed to vet them. It appears Obey is now saying that lists of earmarks will be published "in The Congressional Record a month before they come up for final approval." Of course, there's no reason to wait that long -- lists of earmarks and earmark requests are sitting around the committee offices for months now; why not make the whole process transparent by making the requests publicly available the moment they're sent to the committee?

I think Steve Ellis from Taxpayers for Common Sense characterized and summed up the shortcomings of the plan quite well in the above linked Times piece:


...under Mr. Obey’s new plan, the final decision on each earmark would be made by the handful of leaders of a House and Senate conference. Mr. Ellis called that “the proverbial smoke-filled room.”

In any case, having a crack team of citizen earmark evaluators ready to roll whenever these lists are published is a great idea.
Bill Allison's blog

[Kathianne]

Related:

http://beltwayblogroll.nationaljournal.com/archives/2007/06/david_obey_is_t.php


June 12, 2007
BELTWAY BLOGROLL
David Obey Is The New Ted Stevens

Sen. Ted Stevens was the butt of blogosphere jokes and target of blog swarm after blog swarm for the better part of two years when Republicans controlled Congress. But with Democrats in control, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., appears to be working hard to replace Stevens as Blogosphere Enemy No. 1.

Obey caused an uproar among liberal bloggers in March when he referred to the "idiot liberals" opposed to an emergency spending bill for military operations in Afghanistan in Iraq. Now he is under fire from bloggers on the right for moving to undermine Democrats' pledge to be more transparent about "earmarking" projects in lawmakers' districts for federal spending.

Bloggers are particularly irked by reports that Obey will only add earmarks to House-Senate conference agreements that generally cannot be amendmed on the floor. In the past, earmarks have been included in the separate House and Senate versions of appropriations bills and the committee reports that accompany them.

One explanation Obey gave for the change in course is that he and his staff need "extra time to evaluate the 36,000-plus earmark requests members have submitted to the Appropriations Committee this year." But Porkbusters, the group that so often has been a thorn in Stevens' side, has a solution to that dilemma: Let bloggers help evaluate the earmark requests.

"As you know, Internet technology has made research faster and easier than at any previous time in human history," says a petition being circulated online by Porkbusters. "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."

Obey may well have learned from the "idiot liberals" brouhaha, for which he apologized, that it pays to keep some opinions to himself in an era when outbursts spread virally via the Internet. But when he hears about the petition, I wouldn't be surprised if he takes refuge in a smoke-filled room somewhere on Capitol Hill -- perhaps with Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott, R-Miss. -- to curse the "idiot Porkbusters."

Posted by Danny

[Pale Rider]

I don't know about anybody else, but I signed up.

[nevadamedic]

:popcorn:

[Kathianne]

More:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/418947,CST-EDT-edits08a.article


Keep earmarks where public can eye them

June 8, 2007
When they took office in January, Democrats made a great show of adopting rules to rein in Congress' rampant pork barrel practices, requiring that projects earmarked for federal dollars -- and their sponsors -- are well-publicized. The idea was that subjecting the projects to public scrutiny would weed out the worst abuses -- such as the infamous $223 million "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska. But Democrats in the House seem to be blowing their first opportunity to demonstrate they mean business.

Last week the AP reported that Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), the head of the House Appropriations Committee, instructed his colleagues to keep spending bills free of earmarks until the fall, when House and Senate negotiators will craft the final bills. But adding the pork at such a late hour would prevent most lawmakers from challenging projects, because the House-Senate compromise bills can't be amended and debate is limited. Obey said the delay is necessary because his committee has been deluged with 36,000 earmark requests and has not had time to screen them due to more pressing matters, including the Iraq war spending bill. He said he wanted to make "doggone sure" every project receives the committee's scrutiny and said he remains committed to the new rules and to cutting earmarks in half.

Obey may turn out to be the fierce opponent of pork that he says he is. But it would be a mistake for him to make the process less transparent. "This is not more sunlight," said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.). "This is actually keeping earmarks secret until it's too late to do anything about it." And other critics take issue with Obey's contention that the committee is in the best position to weed out bad earmarks. "Who appointed him judge and jury of earmarks?" asked Tom Schatz,president of Citizens Against Government Waste.

For an example of why public scrutiny is important, look no further than a report in Thursday's New York Times. It described how Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), the sponsor of that infamous "bridge to nowhere," slipped a provision into a 2006 spending bill that directed $10 million to a road that couldn't be much further from Alaska -- in Fort Myers, Fla. The local congressman said he didn't even know about the earmark. The road will benefit a real estate developer who helped raise money for Young's campaign.

[Hugh Lincoln]

Seems it would be a piece of cake in the age of the Internet to put these up for all to see.