Votes within the two major parties’ congressional caucuses are traditionally by secret ballot when choosing their respective legislative leaders. The earmarks moratorium proposed by Sen. Jim DeMint, Sen. Tom Coburn and a host of other conservatives, however, is a leadership issue of a different kind. It’s not about an individual senator but rather the credibility of the GOP caucus. As Lee said, the earmarks moratorium “is a critical policy question, not a leadership election, and it is important that people know how their senators vote.”
The significance of the earmarks moratorium goes even beyond critical policy issues: It is the threshold question for determining who in Washington understands that business-as-usual does not work anymore — and who doesn’t. Ever since the Bridge to Nowhere entered the national political lexicon, no other issue has so crystallized public disgust with Washington spending excesses as have earmarks. Last month, Rasmussen Reports found that 60 percent of its respondents in a national survey preferred a congressional candidate who promised to cut federal spending to one who promised to “bring home the bacon” via earmarks.
Now along comes Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma — urged on by such old school pork barrel stalwarts as Trent Lott and Robert Livingston — touting a straw-man argument that earmarks must be protected to save the Constitution from President Obama and the federal bureaucracy. But nobody disputes that Congress controls spending and thus can earmark appropriations as it wishes. The issue posed by the proposed earmark moratorium is whether it should use its authority for earmarks. This is not a new issue — earmarks circa 2010 is the same debate that began with adoption of the Constitution concerning “internal improvements.” The same voters who restored the GOP majority in the House and elected six aggressively conservative new Republican senators know that spending won’t be cut on the big issues if Congress won’t control itself on the “little” spending issues like earmarking. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell deserves kudos for seeing the light on this issue Monday. Inhofe and any other recalcitrant members of the Senate GOP would be wise to follow his lead today.
Here, I can make this quite easy on the GOP: if you find yourself following the advice of Trent Lott, you’re doing something seedy, unctuous, and decidedly untoward.
Step away from the imitation good-ol’ boy. Step back out into the light.
He won’t follow, trust me. If he does, the lacquer in his hair bursts into flame, a signal for Satan to come reclaim him.
And ol’ Trent won’t risk that so long as there’s a dollar left to be made trafficking on his Beltway connections…
Regardless of how Inhofe votes the ban will go into effect. If congress wants to detail how agencies can spend appropriated monies, or more specifically not spend, then write it into the original appropriations legislation.
This will alo get intersting anyway if Boehner keeps the promise they made in Pledge and breaks bills up into small stand alone chunks. Will the Senate GOP publicly shame that body into following suit?
Jim Oberstar brought home the bacon for decades. There are little towns in northern Minnesota that have beautiful four-lane (and mostly empty!) freeways connecting them. The whole region depended on his regular infusions of cash for bullshit programs to keep them going. And yet, he lost. Lost to a guy that nobody’d ever heard of.
That’s the sort of thing that these jokers need to keep in mind.
I think I actually understand where Inhofe is coming from here. Part of the problem is that “earmarks” refers to two different, but related things. One is where Congress says “This money is to build that bridge/ship // fund that study/pilot program, etc.” in an open discussion in committee, and/or floor amendment. The second is where similar guidance just magically appears in a bill, and there is no audit trail available to the public to show who put it there.
This second kind is the one I think even Inhofe opposes. But calling them all by the same name makes it difficult to have a conversation about them.
All the House needs to do to prevent that is write the appropriation bills narrowly enough, and audit the books thoroughly. And start using the inevitable illegalities from O! and his Merry Men for long-running campaign commercials from now until 2012, bring articles of impeachment, and press the courts to issue injunctions on that basis.
I gotta believe that when GWB ran Lott off after the Strom Thurmond gaffe, he had already assessed him as an asshole.
“Here, I can make this quite easy on the GOP: if you find yourself following the advice of Trent Lott, you’re doing something seedy, unctuous, and decidedly untoward.”
And electorially suicidal, if that can penetrate your Beltway-thickened, go alng to get along skulls…
Ha! Even with preview I retain my typo crown! Take that, Jim in KC!!!!
You know that Trent Lott isn’t a senator anymore, right? Just checking.
this has been a callback to a thread from about a week ago
This second kind is the one I think even Inhofe opposes. But calling them all by the same name makes it difficult to have a conversation about them.
This is why I think McConnell was (seemingly stupidly) pushing back against the ban initially, until he probably realized that since the public only sees “earmarks = pork” he would have to bite the bullet and endorse it to show that yes, he did get the message from the voters on Nov 2nd.
Trent Lott isn’t evil. He’s far too slimy to achieve such a pinnacle.
He does appear on the list of people who can be categorized as “red flags”. If you find yourself on the same side as Trent Lott, it is time and past to give your own ideals a thorough review.
Regards,
Ric
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell deserves kudos for seeing the light on this issue Monday.
I don’t agree he deserves kudos for seeing the light on this issue Monday.
I don’t agree he deserves kudos for seeing the light on this issue Monday.
And the reason is…?
Because he didn’t see the light on this issue before Monday, probably. Which, I can sympathize, but the fact he changed his mind about the ban already demonstrates he’s got about ten times the IQ points of TOTUS and its sockpuppet, Barack Obama.
Yeah, I’d stop well short of kudos, for sure. I think I’d be comfortable with “grudging acknowledgment that he can tell which way the wind is blowing,” but not much more than that.
Still, it means that he’s demonstrated more understanding of the electorate in one week than his predecessor showed in two years, so it’s something.
I’m comfortable with “grudging acknowledgment”.
“Awright kid, this is your big chance. Get in there and give ’em hell.”
“Thanks, Coach!”
“Don’t fuck it up.”
earmarks schmearmarks. Does the budget get smaller, or doesn’t it? Does the role of government decrease, or doesn’t it? I’ll build bridges in Hawaii until the cows come home if it can be done simultaneous to slicing the overall expenditures $400 billion and reducing entitlements.
the cows could come home and you might never even know it
Banning earmarks is about corruption, not deficit reduction. Except that corrupt politicians are more likely to run up deficits. So, I’d say even deficit hawks ought to care about earmarks.
It’s a start. The government is a 450-pound man whose doctor just told him he’s going to die soon. The earmark thing is the guy turning off the TV, getting up off the couch and walking into the front yard.
He ain’t any skinnier, but at least he’s off the couch.