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Mr. President:

This past week, Congress passed an omnibus spending bill that will soon be presented for your signature. While it is consistent with the total budget targets your administration has set, the 3,417 pages of the bill and associated reports are bloated by more than 9,000 earmarks which were subjected to little or no review during the scant 24 hours between the publishing of the bill text and the House voting to pass it. When combined with the more than 2,000 earmarks in the Defense Appropriations Bill this Congress has churned out over 11,000 earmarks this year. The vast majority of these earmarks do not even appear in the legislative text, but rather are buried in the committee reports that accompany the bill, further removing them from proper review and scrutiny. While the total number of earmarks is down compared to record highs and there is increased transparency, there are still far too many to be effectively vetted.

The rushed way in which Congress passed the omnibus - one of the largest pieces of legislation ever considered - made a mockery of our legislative process, and Congress itself bears the responsibility and shame for that. But you have the power to send a message both to Congress and the American people that the waste and corrupting influence of earmarks will not be tolerated. A December 18 legal analysis by the Congressional Research Service concluded that "because the language of committee reports do not meet the procedural requirements of Article I of the Constitution -- specifically, bicameralism and presentment - they are not laws and, therefore, are not legally binding on executive agencies... Given both the implied legal and constitutional authority as well as the long-standing accepted process of Presidents, it appears that a President can, if he so chooses, issue an executive order with respect to earmarks contained solely in committee reports and not in any way incorporated into the legislative text."

On December 20, you stated that you were "instructing the budget director to review options for dealing with the wasteful spending in the omnibus bill." We applaud you for this leadership, and ask that you follow through by issuing an executive order formally directing all Federal agencies to ignore non-legislative earmarks tucked into committee reports and statements of managers. Such an action is within your Constitutional powers, and would strike a blow for fiscal responsibility now while setting a valuable precedent for the future.

Tell Congress and the American public that the era of earmarks is over, and that the Congressional "favor factory" which mints earmarks is closed. The American taxpayer will applaud such an action, as will the many honest legislators in Congress who are trying to fight the broken and corrupt appropriations machine. We hope that you embrace this opportunity, and thank you for your leadership on this issue.

Sincerely,

Alabama Policy Institute
American Conservative Union
American Values
Americans for Prosperity
Americans for Tax Reform
Calvert Institute for Policy Research
Citizens Against Government Waste
Club for Growth
Commonwealth Foundation
Eagle Forum
Evergreen Freedom Foundation
Family Research Council
Freedom Works
Illinois Policy Institute
Larry Kudlow, Kudlow & Company, LLC
The National Tax Limitation Committee
National Taxpayers Union
Porkbusters.org
Taxpayers for Common Sense

Based on what we're hearing from those who would know, key changes include:

• The old version (passed by the Senate) required conference / committee reports to list all earmarks and required the chairman of the relevant committee to distribute the earmark list. But the new version of the bill allows the Majority Leader (as opposed to the Senate parliamentarian, a more objective judge) to determine whether or not a conference report complies with the disclosure requirements.
• The new version removes the requirement for earmark lists posted online to be in searchable format.
• The new version removes the provision that prevented any bill from being considered at all prior to the disclosure of earmarks; now the text only prohibits a formal motion to proceed, which leaves open a procedural loophole that would allow bills to slip through without disclosure.
• The old version prohibited earmarks which benefit a Member, their staff, or their family/their staff’s family. The new version waters that down and only prohibits earmarks that would “only” affect those parties --- which means so long as you can make a case that your shiny new project affects at least one person other than you positively, you’re all set.

But don't take our word for it: you can download a PDF of the new text right here. Check it out, and if you find more nasty surprises in there, please leave a comment and tell us what you've discovered...

More: Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) just released a statement blasting the changes:

“There’s a lot of smoke and mirrors in the new ethics bill, but upon a close look its obvious that earmark transparency reforms have been eviscerated. Senator Reid has given himself and a few committee chairmen the authority to determine whether congressional earmarks have been properly disclosed to the public. My office has confirmed this with the Senate Parliamentarian. Under this bill, the American people would be forced to trust Senator Reid and Senator Byrd – two of the biggest earmarkers in the Senate – to certify earmark disclosure. This bill allows the fox to guard the henhouse and makes a joke of ethics reform.”

“I will offer an amendment to this bill to restore real earmark reform, and I hope all of my colleagues will support it. The culture of earmarks is what drives the culture of corruption, and if we don’t fix the earmark rules in this bill, we will continue to have business as usual in Washington.”

“This bill is nothing more than the status quo, allowing every chairman to decide whether to disclose earmarks or not. Senator Byrd has already ‘certified’ that he is complying with disclosure now, but an independent group, Taxpayers for Common Sense, already showed that $7.5 billion in earmarks have been undisclosed. The favor factory is still open and ready for business.”

And Senator Tom Coburn's (R-OK) staff prepared a handy chart highlighting the changes, which Mark Tapscott has posted over at Examiner.com.

And more: Coburn's office just released the following statement:

“Rather than opening the secret chambers of government to the public, this new Congress has opted to change the locks. This bill, which was negotiated in secret, guts key earmark reforms that both houses of Congress approved overwhelmingly. Unfortunately, this process shows that Congress’s 28 percent approval rating is well-deserved,” Dr. Coburn said.

“The problem in Washington is not lobbyists, but members of Congress. This bill solves the wrong problem and creates new ways to hide earmarks. For example, it is ludicrous to give the Majority Leader of either party, not the objective Senate parliamentarian, new unilateral powers to police earmarks. It is also obscene that the Senate gutted a key reform preventing senators from directing earmarks to family members. The new language mirrors existing Senate rules which have done nothing to prevent these serious conflicts of interest,” Dr. Coburn said.

“In the last election, the American people said they wanted the earmark favor factory to be shut down, not turned over to new management. As our Republican majority learned, breaking promises has consequences. Congress first broke its promise to impose an earmark moratorium by offering 32,000 earmarks. Now Congress has signaled its determination to continue the secretive earmark favor factory,” Dr. Coburn said.

As such things tend to do, a spreadsheet of the requests reached me, so scroll down to view all 1,776 in their pork-laden glory. The first table summarizes the total number of earmarks requested by each member (congratulations Congressman Young --- you win!), and the second table provides the detail (such as it is) for each request.

Sadly, the version I received did not include dollar amounts. But enjoy what we've got...

Update: The full list was a bit too long to post in-line, so I've moved it to a file attachment here.

Check it out to learn how your Senators have voted on twelve key earmark-reform votes.

If you'd like to volunteer your time to help the good Congressman ensure that our tax dollars aren't going to waste on foolish earmarks, sign up right here !

I'd like to thank NZ Bear for giving me the opportunity to address the readers here at Porkbusters. I really appreciate that because Porkbusters, the Club for Growth, and the rest of the blogosphere have provided an invaluable service for American taxpayers by highlighting wasteful spending and working to get it cut out of the budget. There have been a few Republican politicians who seem to have a problem with that, but I'm not one of them.

That being said, I'm sure we do have a few areas of disagreement. There will be programs that Porkbusters opposed that I supported, differences in opinion over some issues, and policies that we don't see eye to eye on. However, I've found that we conservatives, especially over the last couple of years, have spent too much time looking for ways to split ourselves apart and not enough time talking about where we agree.

So, since that's the case, let's talk about the considerable number of areas where we're on the same page.

First of all, I think Ronald Reagan spoke for all of us in the conservative movement when he said,

"We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much."

With that in mind, I want to let you know that I supported George Bush's tax cuts, voted for them, and strongly believe that they should be made permanent. Additionally, I support reform of the alternative minimum tax, believe that it's vitally important that we simplify our tax code, and think it should require a 2/3rds majority in Congress to raise taxes. If you leave money in the pockets of American businesses and taxpayers, the tax base will increase and it will bring in more revenue for the government. That's exactly what happened with the Bush tax cuts, which proved to be extremely beneficial to the economy.

Next, let me talk about area that I think we conservatives often overlook; that's trade. We simply should not stand by and take it when nations like China place a 17% penalty on our imports and de-value their currency by 40%, through currency manipulation, in order to take jobs from American workers. How fair is it for Americans to work hard, play by the rules, be considerably more efficient than workers overseas, and then be put out of a job because their government won't stand up demand that the products they produce be given a fair chance to compete in foreign markets? As President of the United States, I would do something about that.

In terms of spending, I support a multi-faceted approach to eliminating wasteful government spending. First and foremost, we must completely remove outdated and duplicative government programs that only promote bureaucracy and waste taxpayer dollars. The federal government funds hundreds of offices all tasked with the same objective. Is there really a need for over 300 economic development programs or 70 different programs all responsible to ensure safe water? Additionally, federal funding provided to dubious programs like the National Endowment for the Arts whose public financing of objectionable and inappropriate material in the name of artistic education can be better spent on improving conditions for military families.

Also, we must move those federal programs that are better suited to be run locally to state and local governments which best know how to meet the needs of the community. Handing federal programs involving housing, economic development, job training, law enforcement and education back to the states promotes greater accountability, flexibility, and local control. At the same time, this eliminates many of the unnecessary mandates the federal government places on how state and local governments address their own issues.

In addition, I believe we must make a stronger effort to identify and privatize those activities that could be performed better by the private sector. Federal support for programs like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which can remain fully operational with the substantial donations it receives from the private sector, could better be spent on reducing the tax burden on America’s working families.

However, we must make sure that we don’t follow in the footsteps of President Clinton
and balance the budget on the backs of our men and women in uniform. Part of the reason we’ve had trouble balancing the budget over the last few years is because we’ve had to compensate for the neglect of our military during the late nineties. Additionally, because of the war on terror, we can expect increased spending beyond traditional levels in the coming years as our servicemen and women continue fighting the war against terrorism.

Greater defense and homeland spending, however, does not excuse our obligation as elected officials to appropriately spend taxpayer dollars, eliminate unnecessary and duplicative government spending and streamline federal entitlement programs.

We can balance the budget in this country and start paying off the debt, but to do that, we need to get back to basics and understand that the government that governs best is the government that governs least. Towards that end, we must cut government waste, hold new spending down, and make the tax cuts permanent to keep our economy strong.

The Office of Management released their expanded database of 2005 earmarks today, and it’s got some great data. My favorite feature? They made the entire database downloadable in .CSV format, which means that geeks like me can have fun playing with all the numbers.

I’ve just gotten started, but here are two quick cuts at the data that you won’t see on the OMB site itself.

First, a list of the top earmark recipients, by the total $$$ they received:

Top Earmark Recipients (by total $$$ received)

Next, I took the total dollars in earmarks received per state (which is posted on the OMB site), and combined it with state population data (which isn’t). Divide the total earmark $$$ by the state population, and you get earmark $$$ per capita, which I thought might be interesting.

Gee whiz: Alaska and West Virginia showed up in the top five. I can’t imagine why.

Earmark $$$ - Per – Capita By State

More to come once I have more time to play with the data! Enjoy…

Help stop $21 billion of pork-barrel spending in the proposed emergency supplemental appropriations bill by telling your U.S. Representative and Senators to sign CCAGW’s Emergency Supplemental No Pork Pledge today!

Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars should be used only for projects or provisions that are directly related to the emergency supplemental requested by the President that provides funds for our soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq and hurricane relief."

Amen to that. If you want to see for yourself just how bad the emergency supplemental is, you can view the full bill itself at The Victory Caucus, including direct links to many of the most awful provisions such as the dreaded peanut storage costs and spinach funding.

Regardless of your views on the war or on what Congress should do about it, if you are a truly against pork barrel politics, you should oppose this bill in its current form. Congress should pass a bill funding the war --- or defunding it --- based on the merits, not because they have been bought off by pork barrel projects for their districts. (And as the Washington Post reports today, that is exactly what is happening.)

Thus far, Congressman Jeb Hensarling is the only Representative to have formally signed CAGW's pledge. I'm hopefully that many more --- both Republicans and Democrats --- will do so. Call and write your own Representative, and let them know what you think!

Read more at Tapscott's Copy Desk and Instapundit.

Congressman Campbell is now blogging at The Green Eyeshade, and says:

This blog will keep you informed of what's happening in Washington with both those trying to save you money and those trying to spend it. The mainstream media (MSM) rarely reports the proposed solutions that will fix things. And they rarely report all the tax and spend proposals that move through congress to get us in this fix to begin with.

So, put on your green eyeshade and get ready to join us as we open the books of the federal government.

Mmmm....fiscal responsibility. Yummy!

We'll be checking in on the good Congressman regularly, and urge our Porkbusting friends to do the same...

The program was sponsored by Senator Tom Coburn, who is as everyone knows a friend of the Porkbusting cause. In this case, however, the notoriously frugal Senator (who is also a M.D. ) was urging that the government spend money --- but spend it in a way that would achieve demonstrable results for the well being of children at risk of contracting HIV.

Coburn's office provides the following background:

Since 1994, medical experts have known how to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child. “Baby AIDS” can be virtually eliminated if expectant mothers with HIV are identified and treated with AIDS drugs. Infants whose mothers’ HIV status is unknown may also be protected if HIV antibodies are detected soon after birth and treatment is promptly administered. With treatment, the risk of transmission from mother to child can be reduced to less than one percent. Without treatment, 25 percent of children born to mothers with HIV will become infected, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This may be perhaps the single most significant achievement in the battle against HIV/AIDS.

In 2006, Congress established a $30 million HIV early intervention grant program—funded out of CDC’s HIV prevention budget—to provide financial incentives to assist other states eliminate baby AIDS.

So how far would that $30M go? I'm told that the treatment to prevent HIV transmission from mother to child costs a whopping $100. So let's assume that half the $15M goes to overhead and detection, and we've got $15M left for actual treatment. So that would mean 150,000 babies might be treated with the funding allocated.

By comparison, what if a child is born with HIV? Leaving aside the horrific indifference required to condemn a child to such a fate when it is so easily preventable, the financial cost of treatment during the child's lifetime is also staggering. A 2006 study stated "the monthly medical cost for people with HIV, from the time of beginning appropriate care until death, to be $2,100 on average. The projected life expectancy for these individuals, if they remain in optimal HIV care, has now increased to 24.2 years, and the lifetime per person HIV care cost is now $618,900 per person."

So: with your $30M, you can prevent 150,000 children from becoming infected at all --- or you can pay for a tragically shortened lifetime of treatment for fewer than 50 children.

But the funding bill is now law, which means that no funding can be used to implement the program, and the $30M will revert back to other CDC HIV/AIDS prevention activities.

So where will that money be going? Almost certainly to more than a few programs with a significantly more dubious return-on-investment than Senator Coburn's --- at least if the return you are looking for in your HIV/AIDS prevention program is, you know, preventing HIV/AIDS.

Let's take a tour through the rogue's gallery of past CDC programs, shall we?

First, there's the 'education' programs paid for by the CDC and delivered by the STOP AIDS project in San Francisco (scroll to the bottom of the link):

Got Love? #2 - Flirt / Date / Score
February 10, 2004
7 p.m. – 9 p.m.
STOP AIDS Main Office
2128 - 15th Street

Want to flirt with greater finesse and date with more confidence? Who doesn't? Share your expertise and hear how others are successful in meeting guys and staying safe today.

Now, I'm all for flirting. Just not with my tax dollars, please.

Then there was the Asian Pacific Islanders Drag Contest, funded in part by CDC dollars.

And the AIDS conference that featured actress-singer Jenifer Lewis, who

...sang that Mr. Cheney made her "feel like a natural woman," after alluding to the Monica Lewinsky scandal and describing sex with the vice president.

"It was risque to the point where it belonged on Bourbon Street," Mr. Miller said. "

Again: not that there's anything wrong with that! But again: not with my tax dollars, please.

Any huge federal program that's handing out grants is bound to give money to dubious causes once in a while (which is in itself an argument against huge federal programs handing out grants). The point isn't to nitpick every program that CDC funds searching for the embarassing ones (and trust me, the ones above are just for starters).

The point is that we expect our Congress to make intelligent choices with the money we send them. The dismal history of the CDC's other HIV/AIDS programs simply serves to underscore the fact that the HIV prevention program proposed by Senator Coburn is clearly and obviously one of the absolute best ways we could choose to spend our tax dollars. The return-on-investment --- both moral, and financial --- is near impossible to beat.

The defunding of the program was dirty politics, plain and simple. But the loser isn't Senator Coburn: it's the children and their families who will be born with a disease they did not need to have.

Write your Senator and Representative, and tell them what you think. And if you want more information, contact Senator Coburn's office, and I'm sure they'll be glad to provide it.

Liz Mair is on the case:

A few months back, I wrote a couple of posts about DM&E Railroad-- the utterly loss-making venture that seems to get bailout after bailout from the government, and a pet project (quite literally) of Sen. John Thune, who has past business connections to the company.

Thanks to Thune, who is up for the Citizens Against Government Waste "Porker of the Year" Award, it looks like DM&E has now been deemed to have done all it needs to in order to get a $2.3 billion subsidized, and unsecured, loan out of the government. Even though it only brings in $200 million per year, and its existing debt is frankly unmanageable-- meaning that we, the taxpayers, aren't "lending" DM&E anything, we're gifting them a whopping great load of cash. Which DM&E will the use to expand their operations, quite probably with damaging environmental consequences.

As John Hawkins puts it: "So we have a poorly run railroad going to their former lobbyist, John Thune, and getting him to use taxpayer money to give them a loan that no one in private industry would ever make."

Some folks who don't think highly of the idea have put up a petition (and in fact, an entire website). So head over there, do your homework, and if you agree with the boondoggly nature of the choo-choo, sign the petition!

Enacting Common-Sense Reforms To Help Prevent Billions Of Taxpayer Dollars From Being Spent On Unnecessary Earmarks

Amen, brother! We might just have to send a few mugs over to the White House...