February 09, 2006

Pork-Barrel Reduction Act

At 10:30am Eastern time today, Senators Coburn, McCain, Feingold, Bayh, Kyl, Ensign, Graham, Sununu, DeMint, and Cornyn will be introducting the Pork-Barrel Reduction Act. This act is designed to shine a light on the abused appropriations process and will be a necessary first step toward helping eliminate pork-barrel politics.

Here are the details of the Act:

-Creates a new point of order against unauthorized earmarks and policy riders. This point of order allows for the elimination of extraneous individual earmarks and policy riders. Under this provision, only the offending provision would be removed from the appropriations bill or conference report if a point of order was sustained, thus maintaining the integrity of the underlying bill.

-Prohibits federal agencies from spending money on items and earmarks that were only included in unamendable committee or conference reports. This provision requires that all earmarks and spending items be in bill text, allowing for amendment and debate.

-Requires conference reports to be filed and publicly available for at least 48 hours prior to floor consideration. This requirement increases transparency and debate and gives lawmakers and the American public time to review legislation before it receives a vote.

-Strengthens current Senate rules against the conference report inclusion of matter not considered by the House or Senate. This provision prohibits consideration of conference reports containing matter not committed by either the House or Senate. Current rules allow for a point of order against reports with new matter, but many new provisions sneak by when they are attached to must-pass bills that can overcome the point of order.

-Requires full disclosure of any and all earmarks included in bills or conference reports. This provision shines some much needed light on the process by requiring a detailed description of all earmarks, including the identity of the lawmaker seeking the earmark and the earmark’s essential governmental purpose.

-Requires recipients of federal dollars to disclose the amount of money that they spend on registered lobbyists. By increasing transparency and disclosure, this provision reduces the likelihood that taxpayers will unknowingly fund lobbyists who are promoting wasteful earmarks and working against the interests of hard-working taxpayers.

I don't know about you, but this is definitely a bill I can get behind, and I'm glad to see that such an act has bi-partisan backing. However, this bill is sure to be attacked from the likes of Senator "Bridge to Nowhere" Stevens and all the other Congressional porkers.

More: To give you an idea of just how much of a problem Congressional earmarks have become, check out the following charts (click on them for a larger version).

As you can see, from 1996 to 2005, the number of earmarks has skyrocketed from 3,023 to 15,877! The number actually dropped between 1994 (Republican Revolution) to 1996, but since then Congress has lost control.

With the higher number of earmarks has come, of course, a higher cost...

Some have put focus on entitlement savings and shifted the focus away from earmarks as one of the problems in our Federal Government's spending spree, but the following shows the comparison between the cost of earmarks in fiscal year 2005 compared to entitlement savings proposed for not only fiscal year 2006 but also fiscal years 2006-2010!

Just a little food for thought.

More II: The Truth Laid Bear has a tracking page that will keep up with which Senators are supporting the Pork-Barrel Reduction Act. Keep an eye on that page over the next few days to see where your Senators stand after this bill has been introduced. (via Instapundit)

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