Earmarks, those pet projects members of Congress sneak into bills, were scorned by President Obama during the two-year long presidential campaign. He promised to go line-by-line through each bill and eliminate them. Well, he didn't do that--the stimulus bill he signed contained 9,000 earmarks. On the other hand, House Minority Leader John Boehner walks the walk:
This morning, the House GOP Caucus adopted a unilateral ban on all earmarks.
For millions of Americans, the earmark process in Congress has become a symbol of a broken Washington. Today House Republicans took an important step toward showing the American people we're serious about reform by adopting an immediate, unilateral ban on all earmarks. But the more difficult battle lies ahead, and that's stopping the spending spree in Washington that is saddling our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars in debt. Only then will we have succeeded in bringing fundamental change to the way Congress spends taxpayers' money.
Hat tip to Backyard Conservative.
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I am not sure exactly how much money the Congress wastes on earmarks, but I think that it is somewhere in the neighborhood of three percent of total government spending. I hope this is a baby step in the right direction.
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