Have Republicans Cleaned Up Their Act On Earmarking?

Parties no longer equal on pork
The defeat last night of the OmniPorkulus bill, as the Boss Emeritus calls it, gives us a chance to revisit the long-held — and long-true — belief that both parties are equally addicted to pork-barrel spending.  That certainly proved true enough when Republicans held power, as Earmarks skyrocketed and both parties squealed with delight at the trough.  However, a new study by a coalition of of Watchdog groups on the FY2011 Budget proposal shows that one party has made great stride...

The earmark difference in 2010
Image via Wikipedia Byron York: Press coverage of the Budget frenzy on Capitol Hill has suggested that pork-barrel earmark spending is still a Bipartisan problem, that after months of self-righteous Rhetoric about fiscal discipline, Republicans and Democrats remain equal-opportunity earmarkers. It's not true. A new analysis by a group of federal-spending Watchdogs shows a striking imbalance between the parties when it comes to earmark requests. Democrats remain raging spenders, while Republica...

Democrats Request $51.7 Billion In Earmarks To The GOP's $1 Billion
One billion is still a lot, but it has to be said the GOP has greatly curbed, if not completely ended, its appetite for pork. Byron York notes that the media is presenting this as a Bipartisan problem and therefore a betrayal by the GOP. It's not true, at least not as the MFM is claiming. Press coverage of the Budget frenzy on Capitol Hill has suggested that pork-barrel earmark spending is still a Bipartisan problem, that after months of self-righteous Rhetoric about fiscal discipline, Republic...

With big spending bill's demise, is 'earmark' new dirty word on Hill?
Deficit hawks and Watchdog groups see Thursday's demise of an omnibus spending bill in the Senate as a turning point. A critical mass of lawmakers, they say, are committed to an earmark ban. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nev., holds a copy of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington Thursday. There was no last hurrah for Earmarks - known to supporters as “congressionally mandated spending,” and to critics a...

GOP on earmarks: I love you, I love you not
In political campaigns, rule No. 1 is never doing anything that ends up hurting your campaign. It’s pretty simple. If you want to attack your opponent for unpaid Parking Tickets, you’d better have paid all yours.   In the earmark-ban era we are in now, Republicans are conflicted by their past support for — wait, I mean drunken spending on — Earmarks. Last week I wrote about reports that the House GOP is considering repealing and replacing its ban on earmarks with something tha

With Omnibus Dead, How Will The Government Fund Health Reform Implementation?
With Omnibus Dead, How Will The Government Fund Health Reform Implementation? Last night, citing overwhelming opposition from Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) dropped the omnibus spending package that included some $1 billion in funding for health reform and instead opted for a much smaller continuing resolution (CR) to extend federal spending authority into the new year. With the defeat of the omnibus, Republicans are pushing Reid to issue a CR at the 2008 levels, which...

With Omnibus Dead, How Will The Government Fund Health Reform Implementation?
Last night, citing overwhelming opposition from Republicans, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) dropped the omnibus spending package that included some $1 billion in funding for health reform and instead opted for a much smaller continuing resolution (CR) to extend federal spending authority into the new year. With the defeat of the omnibus, Republicans are pushing Reid to issue a CR at the 2008 levels, which may not include additional Health Care dollars since the Affordable Care Act p...

Session Suddenly Not So Lame
It's increasingly apparent that the Congress which hadn't gotten a whole lot done since the enactment of health reform Legislation may well go out with a flurry of genuinely significant activity. The tax deal cleared Congress last night, even as the Senate killed an omnibus appropriations bill leaving most Discretionary Spending decisions to the next session. And it looks like the Repeal of DADT is back on track for a stand-alone vote. Prospects for ratification of START are less robust, but t...

House funds government for three days, forcing return next week
House lawmakers on Friday passed a 72-hour Budget fix, forcing members to return next week to finalize a longer-term proposal. House leaders had hoped the Senate could reach an agreement by week's end on a medium-length Budget bill, allowing members of the lower chamber to adjourn for the year. But with no Senate agreement in sight, House leaders chose to pass a three-day continuing resolution (CR) and return Tuesday morning to finalize the deal. The CR was approved by voice vote. Majority Le...

Earmarks, Spending, and the Scope of the Federal Government
The Washington Post reported yesterday that Republican senators were turning their back on a massive spending bill stuffed full of their own Earmarks. Those earmarks, the Post noted, included quite a few to benefit Mississippi, the home state of Senators Roger Wicker and Thad Cochran: Wicker, along with Cochran, had by then already sponsored earmarks in the spending bill that would fund an airport expansion in Tunica ($1.75 million), new riverwalk lights in Columbus ($300,000), improvements to a...

Momentum builds in Senate for DADT
After countless stops and starts, Senate lawmakers appear on the cusp of ending the Pentagon’s Controversial ban on Openly Gay service members. Senior senators and gay-rights advocates said Friday they are confident they have the 60 votes needed to clear a procedural hurdle and then hold a final vote on the House-passed standalone bill either Sunday or Monday, ushering the measure to President Barack Obama’s desk before Christmas. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset Politico 44...

Food safety bill looks dead, though Democrats say they haven't given up
Democrats say they haven't given up on Legislation that would overhaul the nation's Food Safety system, but a Republican Senate aide said the bill is dead after the omnibus spending bill it was tacked on to was defeated Thursday night.   The Food Safety Modernization Act was included in the proposed omnibus spending bill that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) threw out Thursday night when it became clear it didn't have the votes to pass. Reid said he would work with Minority Leader M...

How They Learned to Start Worrying and Stop Appropriating
The omnibus spending bill died in the Senate last night, and the death was a long time coming. It started to bleed in 2006, when a series of rule changes and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act were passed, opening up the process by which bills were marked up to public scrutiny. It got a good hard kick in December 2009, when President Obama signed that year's omnibus, but only after an angry Speech declaring that the bill had to "mark an end to the old way of doing business a...

Rachel Maddows Anger At U.S. Senate: Game Over For Support From Obama Base?
Last night the U.S. Senate voted on a bill that will extend the current Tax Cuts first put into place by President Bush after Senator Harry Reid appeared to capitulate to the threat of a Republican Filibuster. This appeared to frustrate, if not anger MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow last night, and not only because it messed up the rundown of her show. It understandably irked the self-described progressive because it was just another example of, as she put it, “this phenom of passing bills in t...

The Omnibus Falls
As he stepped into a Capitol elevator late Thursday, bundled up in preparation for the winter winds, Sen. Mitch McConnell cracked a thin smile. For the low-key leader of Senate Republicans, good spirits were certainly in order. Minutes before, his cross-aisle counterpart, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, had sounded a death knell for the much-maligned $1.1 Trillion omnibus spending package — the pork-packed keystone of the Democratic lame-duck agenda. McConnell, in an interview with Nati...

Spending bill still tied in knots
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Worries over a possible government shutdown eased after Senate Democrats agreed to drop a massive omnibus spending bill that failed to garner support from Republicans. Instead, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday night that he would work with the Senate Republican leader to draft a short-term spending measure to keep the government running. Email Print Comment But lawmakers were racing against a deadline of Saturday at midnight, when the current funding me...

Harry Reid, Republicans in talks on judicial nominees - Abby Phillip
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is negotiating a deal with Republican leaders to confirm a long list of President Barack Obama's Judicial Nominations that have idled on the Senate calendar for months, sources say. The deal could involve as many as 19 of President Barack Obama’s judicial nominees who the GOP consider non-controversial, but would leave out a shorter list of more liberal nominees Republicans consider objectionable — setting up another potential disappointment for l...

Defeat 6 Weeks Too Late Is Still Sweet
Last night, Harry Reid pulled the pork-filled omnibus spending bill , agreeing to a 1-page CR to fund the government through the holidays: After wrestling with, and finally abandoning, a 1,900-page catch-all spending bill stuffed with more than $8 billion in home-state projects known as Earmarks in Washington and pork in the rest of the country, Senate leaders need to come up with a measure to keep the Federal Government running into early next year. Nearly $1.3 Trillion in unfinished Budget wo...

The Republicans just made their work harder
WASHINGTON - Democrats controlling the Senate on Thursday abandoned a catchall spending measure that combined nearly $1.3 Trillion worth of unfinished Budget work, including a further $158 billion for Military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The 1,924-page bill collapsed of its own weight after an outcry from Conservatives who complained that it was stuffed with more than $8 billion in homestate pet projects, known as Earmarks, and wrapped together 12 bills into a single foot-tall piec...

Transparency Killed The Earmarking Stars?
How often do omnibus spending bills go down to defeat?  Approximately … never, as Dave Weigel reminds us, and pork is usually the reason why.  Not only do Omnibus Bills appear only when the budgeting process has failed and funding becomes an urgent issue, they also get so large and stuffed with perks that few dare to challenge them. In this case, though, earmark reformers got the edge thanks to the series of measures designed to impose transparency on pork requests.   While some

Senate leaders drops $1.3 trillion spending bill
WASHINGTON—After wrestling with -- and finally abandoning -- a 1,900-page catchall spending bill stuffed with more than $8 billion in home-state projects known as Earmarks in Washington and pork in the rest of the country, Senate leaders turned Friday to devising a measure to keep the Federal Government running into early next year. Nearly $1.3 Trillion in unfinished Budget work needed to keep the government running was packed into the spending measure, including $158 billion for Military...

Senate leaders drops $1.3 trillion spending bill
WASHINGTON (AP) - After wrestling with—and finally abandoning—a 1,900-page catchall spending bill stuffed with more than $8 billion in home-state projects known as Earmarks in Washington and pork in the rest of the country, Senate leaders turned Friday to devising a measure to keep the federal government running into early next year. Nearly $1.3 Trillion in unfinished Budget work needed to keep the government running was packed into the spending measure, including $158 billion for mil...

Republicans Stop Pro-Abortion Omnibus Bill as Reid Pulls It
Late Thursday, pro-abortion Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave up on trying to pass the 1.1 Trillion omnibus spending bill that contains numerous goodies for the Abortion industry. After realizing Republicans were unified in opposition to the measure and had enough votes to sustain a Filibuster against it, Reid pulled the Legislation. The move results in yanking more than $1 billion in funding for implementation of the ObamaCare Health Care law that could result in massive Abortion funding. ...

Congress rushes to finish bills before holidays
Senate Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., walks to his office on Capitol Hill in Washington Friday, Dec. 17, 2010. Rushing to finish by Christmas, congressional Democrats worked Friday to secure Senate ratification of a new Arms Control treaty and to end the Military's ban on Openly Gay service members as they neared the end of two tumultuous years of single-party government. Legislation to keep the Federal Government running until mid- to late February was also on the agenda, a matter for...

House members boo working holiday week
Washington (CNN) - House members aren't happy that they'll have to return next week, booing when House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer announced Friday they would have to return on Tuesday to continue their work. Congress is still working through a number of issues, particularly that of funding the Federal Government after its current money runs out at 11:59 p.m. Saturday. The current plan is to pass a continuing resolution (CR) to pay for government operations for another five days - forcing ...