Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Earmarks Are Dead...Long Live the Earmarks!

Via Jack Murtha's Friends by Robert Novak:
WASHINGTON -- Democrats controlling the House of Representatives demonstrated this month the hollowness of their claim that they have ended the corruption of 12 Republican years. Rep. John Murtha quietly slipped into the Intelligence authorization bill two earmarks costing taxpayers $5.5 million. The beneficiary was a contractor headquartered in Murtha's hometown of Johnstown, Pa., whose executives have been generous political contributors to the powerful 17-term congressman.

This scandalous conduct would be unknown except for reforms by the new Democratic majority. But the remodeled system is not sufficiently transparent to expose in a timely manner machinations of Murtha and fellow earmarkers to his colleagues, much less to the public. It took Republican Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona, the leading House earmark-buster, to discover the truth.

Jack Murtha, the maestro of imposing personal preferences on the appropriations process, looks increasingly like an embarrassment to Congress and the Democratic Party. But there is no Democratic will to curb Murtha, one of Speaker Nancy Pelosi's closest associates. Nor are Republicans eager for a crackdown endangering their own earmarkers.

On May 10, as the Intelligence bill neared passage, Flake took the floor of the House to relate how Capitol Hill works. Told there were no earmarks attached to the bill, a skeptical Flake sought the measure's classified annex but was sent on a wild goose chase for earmarks -- first to the clerk of the House and then to the parliamentarian. When he finally found 26 earmarks, it was five hours after the deadline to submit amendments to the bill. Flake requested a secret session of the House on Intelligence earmarks, but got no support from either party...

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