Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) wrote this guest post for the PorkBusters blog campaign in 2006, after the 2005 highway bill carried about 6,371 earmarks. Congress then went further than the post asked: both chambers banned earmarks from 2011, and in 2021 they came back as Community Project Funding in the House and Congressionally Directed Spending…
Glenn and I had the opportunity to interview the House Majority Leader today on the budget, porkbusting, and the prospects for the emergency supplemental spending bill. Audio can be downloaded here: high quality mp3 / lower quality mp3 My favorite bit was when I asked Congressman Boehner about the mind-numbingly stupid proposal that, rather than…
House leaders got most of what this letter asked for. In June 2006, House and Senate negotiators cut the Senate’s roughly $109 billion version of H.R. 4939 to about $94.5 billion and dropped the $700 million Mississippi rail relocation. President George W. Bush signed the bill on June 15, 2006, as Public Law 109-234. Congress…
The Wall Street Journal editorial quoted below turned out to be right about the election: Republicans lost the House in November 2006, and Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) gave up the Appropriations Committee gavel in January 2007. Lewis died on July 15, 2021, at age 86. House Republicans adopted an earmark moratorium in March 2010, and…
