truthlaidbear.com/porkbusters/index.php
a new website dedicated to tracking government spending: From his press release: "The new oversight website will provide the public with tools to track how their tax dollars are spent and help taxpayers access information on federal spending and congressional oversight. "Transparency and accountability in federal spending have been lacking because Congress for too long has not given due diligence to its Constitutional duty of oversight. Federal agencies and programs often receive automatic budget increases year after year without anyone ever asking whether those agencies and programs have accomplished their goals or if they are even necessary," Dr. "As the appetite for spending grows in Congress, the debt our children and grandchildren will be forced to pay back grows as well. In a time of unprecedented fiscal challenges, lawmakers must stop thinking about the next election and start thinking about the next generation of Americans."
The Pig Book is the definitive source for finding everything you never wanted to know about pork projects, and is a required reference for all self-respecting Porkbusters.
making Trent Lott tired, but data I just received today on the number of earmarks requested by members suggests that we're also making a difference. The table below, from a Hill source, shows that for FY '07, the overall member requests dropped by 37% --- with every single Appropriations Subcommittee showing a decrease. This is a single-source item, and so we can't completely vouch for its accuracy, but the source is a very credible one, so it meets my standard to be worth sharing. But assuming the numbers are accurate, they show that the public disgust with Congressional spending is indeed making an impact.
killing the proposal for a public database of government grants, by the way: strong work there on behalf of the Republic! At any rate, I'm sorry to say it, but we have just barely gotten started making the likes of Mr Lott tired. But hey, Trent: thanks for the free publicity --- that quote's definitely going to have to go on the masthead here at Porkbusters.
an Appropriations meeting scheduled to discuss earmark reform. At the time, Appropriations Chairman Cochran's spokesperson, Jenny Manley, denied all knowledge of any such meeting either occuring, or having been scheduled in the first place. According to Senate Budget Chairmain Judd Gregg, however, a meeting did occur.
Congressional Quarterly (subscription required) as follows: "Senate appropriators discussed possible earmark overhauls in a meeting Feb. Update: Jenny Manley writes: "I'm sorry if I misled you in any way last week. Gregg got together some other Senators to talk about earmarking. It was just an informal discussion among a small group of Senators (Republican and Democrat appropriators) who are interested in talking more about earmark reform. I understand someone who works for Gregg referred to it as a "task force" but no one else has called it that, and the Committee does not view these Members as any type of official subcommittee. It was just a few Members who got together to discuss their ideas... Had I known about this meeting last week though, I would have referred you to one of the Members who attended the meeting for a comment. My intent last week was to see to it that you had the truth, not to cloud the situation.
a great piece on how Porkbusting is an issue which crosses the left-right divide: This remains for me the most interesting thing about the moves to slice the pork: the way they cut across party lines. Among the competing anti-pork legislation currently jockeying for position in Congress is a Senate bill proposed by John McCain and Tom Coburn and cosponsored by Russ Feingold and Evan Bayh, another introduced by Trent Lott and Diane Feinstein, and a House bill cosponsored by Republican Jeff Flake and Democrat Harold Ford. The bills vary in scope, strictness and the degree of transparency they require, but they all recognize that something needs to be done to derail the corporate welfare gravy train. You know something interesting is afoot when Tom Coburn and Barack Obama -- and in the blogosphere, TruthLaidBear and Instapundit -- are all pushing the same issue.
Arianna sees the Republican-controlled Congress' failure to reign in earmarks and "corporate welfare" as an opportunity for the Democrats --- and she's right. As Glenn is fond of pointing out, Republican "conservatives" who get busted for living with their snouts in the public trough will get little sympathy from allegedly right-leaning types like he and I They deserve exactly what they get --- which, preferably, will be getting booted out of office. As Arianna puts it: "It's well past time that right vs left gave way to right vs wrong."
Appropriations Committee Meeting on Earmark Reform Today? February 16, 2006 08:52 AM Overheard on the hill: A friendly mole reports that there is allegedly a meeting today at 4pm of the "Appropriations Committee Task Force on Earmark Reform". See also: Foxes Unite To Assess Henhouse Security So if you've got a few free minutes today: give Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran's office a call at (202) 224-5054; Ask them if this rather interesting-sounding hearing is open to the public (and if not, why not). Update: After being contacted by a Porkbusters supporter, Jenny Manley was kind enough to respond directly in the comments below. full questions & her answers are below (edited only for formatting): NZ: Thanks for your direct reply, it is appreciated. I also noticed your comment posted on the Porkbusters blog. Was there a meeting of some/all Appropriations Committee members previously scheduled to occur today that was intended to address earmarks? NZ: Is it the statement of the Chairman's office that the information we received that there was such a meeting scheduled today (at 4pm, in S-128) was inaccurate? I was in S-128 at 4:00 today, and I saw no such meeting. NZ: Is there any effort on the part of the Appropriations Committee leadership or members planned to address earmark reform (whether it is called a "task force" or something else)? JM: There are several individual members of the Committee, the Senate, and more broadly the Congress who are interested in addressing earmark reform. Chairman Cochran has met with several of these Members and with the Senate Appropriations Committee, and he is right now carefully listening to their different ideas and proposals. We think at some point through this dialoguing a consensus on changes to the appropriations process will emerge. To close this episode, I will state that despite Ms Manley's statements, it is my belief, based on checking once again with the source on this item, that a meeting was indeed scheduled, but was most likely cancelled once it became publicly known. I'm comfortable with the original statements of the post as they stand...
hit the press today: but I don't think it turned out quite the way the leakers in the Appropriations Committee might have hoped: The committee that controls the pursestrings compiled a list of earmarks requested last year by GOP lawmakers who favor Flake's bill. "I am shocked that the Republican staff of a Republican-led committee in a Republican-majority Congress would do opposition research on a fellow Republican," first-term Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia wrote in a letter to fellow GOP lawmakers. "I do not see any other purpose behind the preparation of this report other than for it to be leaked to the press." The Associated Press obtained copies of both the Appropriations Committee tally and the letter...
And right about now, the real fight against pork and for earmark reform is beginning. According to the sponsoring Senators, the bill does the following: - 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. This provision requires that al...
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