Wake-up time for Congress on earmarks
In an op-ed Wednesday, Sen. Evan Bayh (D) of Indiana urged Congress to veto the omnibus spending bill because of the wasteful spending contained in it.
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Tough times are like an alarm clock. They wake people up.
GM awoke from its slumber this week to discover -- to no one else's surprise -- that it may not survive. Now the alarm bell is ringing in Washington.
That's one way to interpret Congress's failure to approve a $410 billion omnibus bill that was supposed to fund government through聽the rest of the fiscal year. Instead, it passed a stop-gap measure to keep government operational for days.
The problem with the omnibus package? Two many senators complained it was laden with pork and pointed most frequently to聽the bill's 8,750 earmarks -- pet projects of members of Congress -- worth $7.7 billion.
They complained about聽$143,000聽for an online encyclopedia in Nevada聽and聽$6.6 million for termite research in New Orleans. At least the聽$1.7 million provision聽for hog odor research didn't try to hide anything. It was聽true pork -- and smelled like it, too. (Click here to learn about聽the Texas honeybee factory and other taxpayer stingers.)
Just shy of passage
The Senate didn't pass the bill because聽Democratic leaders reportedly were one vote short of the 60 votes needed for trouble-free passage and Republicans were savaging the bill for its wasteful spending. So maybe the jangle of the alarm clock聽is beginning to penetrate the Capitol dome.
Admittedly, much of the opposition is political posturing. Some聽of the Republicans who are incensed the most helped craft the bill. Most Republicans fed at the same trough when they were in the power. If this omnibus bill ultimately fails, they will also lose their pet projects.But some Republican critics聽have consistently opposed earmarks. This week, they were joined by a few聽Democrats, such as Sens. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin and Evan Bayh of Indiana, who also criticized the spending.
"The omnibus debate is not merely a battle over last year's unfinished business, but the first indication of how we will shape our fiscal future,"聽wrote Senator Bayh in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal Wednesday. "Most people are willing to do their duty by paying taxes, but they want to know that their money is going toward important priorities and won't be wasted."
These critics have聽heard the alarm clock.
Same-old, same-old
Democratic congressional leaders correctly point out that eliminating the聽earmarks would trim the omnibus bill by less than 2 percent, a symbolic amount. But聽symbols are important.
If Congress can rail against auto executives for using corporate jets (even though driving to Washington is a dubious use of their time), surely it can understand why Americans expect uber-responsibility from those in power.
President Obama has heard the alarm clock, sort of. He has called for corporate executives, bankers, Wall Street wizards, insurers, and now the medical industry to be more responsible in this economic crisis. Translated, that means they聽get聽less money in his new economy.
Apparently, however, those new rules don't yet apply to his former colleagues聽in Congress. Calling the omnibus bill聽"old business" doesn't make it聽more justifiable -- or right.
Congress now has聽a brief opening to change course, strip out wasteful spending, and pass聽new spending legislation. Then, maybe, it has the potential to become part of the solution rather than part of the problem.