CCAGW Calls Earmark Reform Changes a Fiscal Fiasco

CAGW* | September 5, 2007

As members of Congress left for their August recess, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) charged Senate and House conferees on ethics and lobbying legislation with undermining earmark reform, following secret negotiations arranged by the Democratic congressional leadership that bypassed the normal legislative process. The compromise ethics and lobbying bill, which passed both the House and Senate before the recess, guts the earmark reform provisions adopted earlier by the Senate as legislation and the House as internal rules. Among its shortcomings, the compromise bill eliminates a provision in the original Senate legislation that would have blocked consideration of any bill in conference unless all earmarks were disclosed in advance and requires Congress to create a publicly searchable database of earmarks only “if practicable.” The compromise bill makes a mockery of the Democratic leadership’s pledge to be “the most ethical Congress in history.” “The taxpayers’ worst fears have been realized. Prototypical of Washington backroom deals, House and Senate Democrats have conjured up a deal that benefits only the powerful appropriators and the special interests that game the system at the expense of average Americans,” said CCAGW president Tom Schatz.

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