The Hill Report

This week, the House of Representatives convened in Washington with plans to consider four of the 12 appropriations bills that fund our government annually. Consideration began early in the week with the Homeland Security Appropriations bill for fiscal year (FY) 2008, but was quickly sidelined when the Democrat Majority unabashedly announced its ill-advised plan to withhold Members’ spending requests – typically known as earmarks – from full House consideration and to allow Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) and his staff to make all decisions on the requests only after the House voted on the legislation.

Under the Majority’s plan, Members would have been prevented from debating and voting on each earmark, eliminating an important check on pork barrel spending. Democrats’ refusal to allow debate on earmarks would have, in effect, created a slush fund for secret earmarks on appropriations bills, a marked departure from their campaign promises to bring increased transparency and ethics to Congress.

Backlash from both the public and Members of the House was swift. House Members pointed out that the Republican-led House last year delivered real earmark reform that brought greater transparency and accountability to federal spending. These reforms required earmarks and their sponsoring Member to be identified within each bill, allowed Members to debate the merits of each earmark and challenge wasteful spending on the House floor, and prevented decisions on spending taxpayer money from being made subjectively at the whim of the party in power.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) seemingly agreed last year, pledging to “bring transparency and openness to the budget process and to the use of earmarks.” Instead, under her leadership, the new Majority attempted to gut last year’s reforms, making it harder for Americans to see how their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent by Washington politicians.

Fortunately, a united opposition to the secret earmark slush fund forced a return to last year’s reforms, the full disclosure of all earmarks, and the right of Members to debate and challenge earmarks on the House floor – all critical components of the public transparency and scrutiny needed to ensure fiscal responsibility.

Even without earmarks and secret slush funds, this year’s appropriations bills spend billions more than the President requested. At the same time, the new Majority under Speaker Nancy Pelosi presses ahead with what promises to be the largest tax increase in American history.

With such legislation on the horizon, American taxpayers should always have the right to scrutinize the expenditure of taxpayer dollars. End-runs around rules designed to ensure transparency in the appropriations process simply cannot be tolerated.

This week marks just the start of the appropriations season. I pledge to continue to insist upon transparency, insist on full disclosure, and insist on fiscal responsibility on behalf of taxpayers in Dallas and across the country.