Six Senators Back DeMint's Earmark Proposal
MSNBC reports:
WASHINGTON — Even as they prepare to welcome 13 newly elected Republicans into their ranks, GOP senators have already fired the opening salvos in an intraparty ideological battle over federal spending — one that threatens to divide the upper chamber’s Old Bulls and newer Tea Party-aligned members.
South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint, a champion of conservative candidates like Florida’s Marco Rubio and Utah’s Mike Lee, announced Tuesday that he will push Senate Republicans to vote to make “earmarking” — the process by which lawmakers can set aside federal funds for pet projects in their home states — expressly against internal GOP rules.
Six of the new GOP freshmen, including five who received backing from DeMint during their campaigns, have signed on to his proposal.
But, while DeMint and other Senate fiscal conservatives argue that so-dubbed “pork barrel spending” wastes taxpayer dollars and facilitates fishy political back-scratching, other Republicans say that a ban would do little to curb government spending and would put more control into the hands of government agencies rather than lawmakers who best understand their constituents.
“This debate doesn't save any money, which is why it's kind of exasperating to some of us who really want to cut spending and get the federal government's discretionary accounts under control,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on “Face the Nation” on Sunday.
Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma was even more blunt. “The ban doesn’t accomplish anything,” he told POLITICO.
Several of the GOP candidates who won Senate seats on Nov. 2 made earmark reform a central plank of their campaign pitches. Former presidential nominee Sen. John McCain was a high-profile champion of the idea during the 2008 presidential race, commonly accusing Congress of wasting money with the gusto of "a drunken sailor."
