From CNN:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md, insisted Tuesday that Congress, not President Obama, would decide whether to put more limits on earmarks in upcoming spending bills.

Asked about a statement by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs Monday that the Obama Administration was formulating guidelines for earmark reform, Hoyer said flatly, “I don’t think the White House has the ability to tell us what to do.” He paused deliberately and quipped to reporters in the room, “I hope you all got that down.”

For those who don’t quite know, earmarks, as described by the Executive office of the President of the United States is:

Funds provided by the Congress for projects or programs where the congressional direction (in bill or report language) circumvents the merit-based or competitive allocation process, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the Executive Branch to properly manage funds. Congress includes earmarks in appropriation bills - the annual spending bills that Congress enacts to allocate discretionary spending - and also in authorization bills.

There’s a great scene in “The Untouchables” where Ness and his men decide to raid one of Capone’s secret alcohol supply warehouses. As Sean Connery’s character tells him, “Once you walk through that door, there’s no going back.” There is a similar situation Obama faces with congress over “business as usual” that never should have been so.

The fact that Congress believes they have the privilege to earmark monies is part of the continued residue of corrupt politics in Washington. All earmarks really are are Congressmen and women “paying back” the lobbyists who’ve funded their campaigns or other individuals they’ve personally networked with. It is NOT the honest way to appropriate our tax dollars and it must stop.

Will Obama have the will to put this practice to bed for good? I don’t know. I’m sure the American people would love to do so. I think the only way he might succeed is if he takes it to us and wages war against these career politicians. It would be a nice turn of the screw and I believe he’s trying to alude to that in his guideline reassessment. Personally, I think it’s long overdue and the trashbags in Congress, democrat and republican, need to start working for us again.

Current News, Politics Barack Obama, congress, congressional earmarks, corrupt government, earmarks, Obama, Steny Hoyer

“Sacred cows” is Nelson’s polite phrase for earmark-like projects, sacred to members, like $400 million for sexually transmitted disease prevention, $350 million for computers at the USDA, $14 million for cyber security and millions for NASA research.

“They’re good programs, but they just don’t belong, in our opinion, in a stimulus package,” Nelson told FOX News, saying that, instead, members should look to the next spending bill in the pipeline, an omnibus appropriations bill that funds federal agencies for 2009, a measure that was postponed from last year.

A week ago, the republicans put out a list of what they considered waste in the stimulus bill. I’ve tried reading the bill approved by the house and found it daunting. What stood out most was not the individual programs proposed (nothing is revolutionary), but the dollar amounts applied to them. There are oversight committees that are getting anywhere from $350,000,000 to $500,000,000 for management costs alone. Now, some of these programs are active until 2011, but consider that on the low end - 2 years, $350,000,000. That’s a budget of $116,000,000 a year for staff and office space. If my company had revenue like that, I’d be living in a mansion on the ocean.

Very likely, these programs will have staffs of maybe 50, which means there will be an enormous amount of waste. Beyond that, most of your congress people and senators will not even read this 650 something page document, so all they will be concerning themselves with is the expenditures to their state.

Personally, I think it is the duty of everyone of our representatives to read through this document thoroughly and understand the broader scope of what is needed. It’s fine to know the small details, but it must be within the context of a bigger picture.

There is also alot of garbage in this package and it leaves me shaking my head as to why these people can’t come up with anything NEW. With the kind of money being thrown around, you’d think they could hire the best minds to find the most unique ideas on how to stimulate this economy beyond the standards proposed in Roosevelts New Deal and the obligatory tax cuts.

Politics congress, harry reid, nancy pelosi, republican waste list, senate, stimulus bill

“Republicans ridicule the jobs bill as a grab bag of pork-barrel projects that would do little to help the economy… Democrats say the extra spending for everything from public works to child immunization is needed to create jobs that have been slow to come out of the sluggish recovery.

The GOP campaign against the bill threatened Democratic plans to get the completed measure before Congress recesses for two weeks. That still could happen - but the start of the break might be delayed beyond its scheduled start tonight.

Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-Maine, indicated he would force Republicans to vote daily on motions to choke off the debate, perhaps starting as early as today.

Eventually, Democrats contend, some Republicans will cave in because the bill includes money to extend unemployment benefits to many of the nation’s long-term unemployed.”

No. This is not today. This is from a news article in 1993, when Clinton was in office. The situation was similar to our current one, yet not quite as grave. Despite an economy in tatters (courtesy of the first Bush), Republicans STILL felt the need to play their little political games as obstructionists - and Democrats, against good common sense, threw pork at the problem.

What’s going the CHANGE? Who knows. I hate to be cynical. It’s the easy thing to do - and I want younger people to have some hope for their government to start doing some of the things it says it’s going to do. I think if anyone has the moral authority to command this change, it will be Obama - but if he were to learn one thing from Bush (and one thing is about all you can learn), it would be that the strong arm approach is not distasteful.

Lyndon Johnson pushed through alot of good social programs during a short time in office, precisely because he was a tough guy and an arm twister. Carter, on the other hand, accomplished little in office and, although he has redeemed himself post-Presidency, was known as a bit of a wimp while in office. Obama cannot allow himself to follow that path.

In short, I really don’t think the Congress or the Senate has our best interests in mind when they make law and dole out cash. I know this seems like an elementary thing to say, but it really needs to be said and heard: CONGRESS AND SENATE DO NOT HAVE OUR BEST INTERESTS IN MIND.

That being a given, we really need to get more involved in our government. Another elementary call-to-action, but no less true.

This past summer I was at a festival in my county and confronted my Senator about having withdrawal guidelines built into that Iraq funding bill. He hemmed and hawed, threw out the party line that “we have to support our troops and not hinder their success” - and this guy was a democrat. I wish I had told him to go fuck himself. At least then he might have realized he was voted into office and not ordained. Nonetheless, there are things we can do to get these people’s attention.

PRWeb.com

For $80 dollars we can send out a press release outlining our expectations from the Congress and Senate regarding this stimulus package. The press release will appear on popular news sites such as Yahoo News, Google, MSN news, PrNewswire and others. I’ve been pondering this solution for a while - considering that a hell of a lot more than $80 is coming out of my pocket for this package anyway. Heck, if enough people are willing to contribute a testimonial and a buck, we could send out a few of these.

Politicians, unfortunately, expect you to have a short memory about all these things. Most of the time they are right. What I would suggest you do is remember this time, this challenge and their response - and be willing to bring it up to them 10 or 15 years from now when they do the same things all over again.

Politics congress, government corruption, Obama, pelosi, republican blockers, stimulus package