Senate Dems Defend Earmarks
The Hill reports:
Senate Democrats on Tuesday defended the congressional system of earmarking even as their GOP colleagues approved a voluntary two-year ban on the practice.
There was scant support among the chamber’s majority party to follow the lead of Republicans who voted in a closed-door conference meeting to ban the practice of tucking home-state pork into appropriations bills. The vote was almost unanimous.
Instead, Democrats defended the age-old practice by noting they had already improved the system’s transparency in 2008 and that they reserved the right to seek funding for their states’ needs.
“We have a constitutional obligation and responsibility,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). “I have an obligation to the people of Nevada.”
Several Democrats mocked the ban and Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell’s (Ky.) surprise decision to back it.
“I’m not ready to throw in the towel. Apparently Mitch McConnell is,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), an Appropriations Committee member. “The arguments being made to ban earmarks are that it’s going to reduce spending. That’s nonsense. It’s not. It just changes who decides — from elected officials, on the basis of what they’re hearing from local folks, to nameless, faceless bureaucrats.”
