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Coalition challenges GOP on earmarks Senators backed by tea party intend to vote on a moratorium proposed by DeMint of S.C.
BY PHILIP RUCKER E
venbeforethenewCongress is swornin,Sen. JimDeMint (R-S.C.) and an emboldened
coalition of tea-party-backed sen- ators are challenging theRepubli- can Party establishment by re- opening a long-simmering debate over congressional earmarks. GOP senators are planning an
internal vote thisweek onamora- torium proposed by DeMint that would ban Republicans from passing earmarks — lawmakers’ fiercely guarded practice of steer- ing federal money to pet projects in their home states. Earmarks are lampooned so
much as pork-barrel spending that they have become seen by some lawmakers as political lia- bilities, but efforts to end the practice thus far have failed. And DeMint’s moratorium, even if it passes, will be a symbolic gesture at best. It would be a nonbinding Senate Republican Conference rule,meaningGOPsenators could sidestep the rule to insert ear- marks into budget appropriation bills. “Americans want Congress to
shut down the earmark favor fac- tory,” DeMint, a prominent voice of the tea party, said in a state- ment lastweek. “Insteadof spend- ing time chasing money for pet projects, lawmakerswillbeableto focus on balancing the budget, reforming the tax code and re- pealing the costly health care takeover.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.) and other ear- mark defenders, who say that banning the practice would not actuallydecreasethebudget,have
been canvassing the caucus in recent days, lining up votes againstDeMint’smoratorium. “The problemis, it doesn’t save
any money,” McConnell said last week on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “What we really need to do is to concentrate on reducing spend- ing and reducing debt. And this debate doesn’t save any money, which iswhy it is kind of exasper- ating to some of us who really want to cut spending.” Sen. JamesM. Inhofe (R-Okla.),
another supporter of earmarks, said in an interview that banning earmarks “gives cover for big- spendingmembers ofCongress to look conservative. They start demagoguing the earmark thing and everybody goes, ‘Oh, they must be conservative.’ ” The vote, which appears likely
to occur by secret ballot in a meetingTuesdayofGOPsenators, is open to incoming senators and will be the first test of newly minted conservative senators’ fol- low-through on their campaign pledges. At least eight current senators
are publicly supporting DeMint’s moratorium, as well as five in- coming Republican senators: Rand Paul (Ky.), Marco Rubio (Fla.),Mike Lee (Utah), Pat Toom- ey (Pa.) andKellyAyotte (N.H.). Paulhas vacillatedonthe issue,
suggestingtotheWallStreet Jour- nal that he would advocate for Kentucky’s share of earmarks as long as the earmarks are appro- priatedat the committee level ina transparent manner. But he later told CNN: “I will not earmark anything, and I will not support earmarks.” In the House, Republicans are expected to vote next week on a
measure to ban all earmarks in the new session that begins in January. Last year, House Repub- licans undertook a one-yearmor- atorium on all earmarks. House Democrats passed a similar ban, but only on earmarks for private contractors. “Earmarks have become a sym-
bol of a dysfunctional Congress and serve as a fuel line for the culture of spending that has dom- inated Washington for too long,” House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and HouseMi- nority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said in a joint statement Friday. Boehner and Cantor called on
President Obama, long an oppo- nent of earmarks, to veto any spending bill that contains them. Obama waded into the debate
Saturday in his radio address, calling on Congress to “put some skininthegame” inreformingthe budget. He stopped short of en- dorsing DeMint’s proposal, but said he supports lawmakers who believe “we can’t afford what are called earmarks.” “We have a chance to not only
shine a light on a badWashington habit that wastes billions of tax- payer dollars, but take a step to- ward restoring public trust,” Obama said. Theamountofmoneyallocated
incongressional earmarkshasde- clined over the past three years, from$18.3billioninfiscal 2008 to $15.9billioninfiscal2010,accord- ing to Taxpayers for Common Sense. TheDemocratswhocontrol the
Senate have expressed no desire to revoke this power. In fact, Sen- ate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and other veteran lawmakers have repeatedly won
reelectionbyhighlightingthe ear- marks they secured for their states. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye (D-Ha-
waii), chairman of theAppropria- tions Committee, said earmarks are “an important part of the constitutional duty of Congress andtheyhavebeenvital to fortify- ing the physical, social and eco- nomic infrastructure ofmy home state ofHawaii and the nation.” The issue could create the pos-
sibility of cross-Capitol chaos, if the Senate submits final appro- priations bills containing ear- marks toaHouse thathaspledged to ban them. Some Senate Republicans are
defending earmarks by saying banning themsimply cedes to the Obama administration the power to allocate federal dollars. “Every president, Republican
orDemocrat,would like to have a blank check from Congress to do whatever he chooses to do,” McConnell,whowonreelectionin 2008 in part by touting his ear- marks, said after a recent speech to theHeritage Foundation. Inhofe evoked the Constitu-
tion, saying that the Founding Fathers intended to give the legis- lative branch earmark authority as a check on the executive branch’s control over government spending. “Every time you kill an ear-
mark, it would transfer whatever that amount of money is to the president,” Inhofe said. “In Okla- homa, if I’mnot taking care of the needs of Oklahoma . . . Obama’s not going to do it.He doesn’t even know where Oklahoma is. And people in South Carolina and Oklahoma, they pay taxes too.”
ruckerp@washpost.com
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