The State Children's Health Insurance Program (S-CHIP) has been a hot topic in Congress over the past week and, as I write this, Democrat leadership is scurrying about to try and roundup the needed votes to pass this legislation. So what is the problem? Surely something that has the words "Children's Health Insurance" in its title should have no problem passing as Democrat Congress, right?

The problem is that the current legislation Democrat leadership is pushing would increase federal spending for the S-CHIP program by $50 BILLION over the next 5 years. And how are they going to pay for this $50 billion? Increased taxes of course, including a tax on privately held health insurance plans such as the one you probably have.

Now, the S-CHIP program was originally designed to help poverty level children, something I think we can all get behind. But who will be the beneficiary of this increased spending under the new plan? A family of 4, including adults, who make up to $81,000 per year or 400% above poverty level could qualify to be covered under this program. It looks to me more like a gradual spread of socialized medicine rather than helping the truly needy in our country. Ironically enough, under the Democrat's expanded S-CHIP program, 70,000 American families would be "poor enough" to qualify for S-CHIP while at the same time among "the rich" who have to pay the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

As you know, I believe the earmark process must be completely reformed. The current system is neither transparent nor does it have checks and balances or accountability.

Here is a summary of my 10 point plan to reform the process. You will hear more about my plans for this in the future.

10 Point Plan for Earmark Reform

1. Members must make public and fully disclose all earmark requests when they are submitted.
   
2. Put every earmark in the text of the bill.
   
3. The bill should fully disclose all earmarks with the requesting member(s), amounts, recipients and purpose at least 1 week before any bill containing earmarks is brought to the floor.
   
4. All earmarks must be available for discussion at an open Congressional hearing.
   
5. All earmarks for programs must be previously authorized by Congress.
   
6. Earmarks must serve a federal interest and/or have a federal nexus.
   
7. No earmarks outside of a member's own state.
   
8. No earmarks to private entities without a competitive bidding process.
   
9. No earmark can be added or increased in a conference committee to an amount greater than the amount passed in either the House or the Senate version of the bill.
   
10. The dollar amount of any earmarks reduced by amendment or committee should go towards debt/deficit reduction and not be reallocated into other spending.

On Thursday night, I offered an amendment to strike a $2 million earmark offered by Congressman Charlie Rangel (D-NY) to establish a center for public policy at the City College of New York.

My problem with the earmark? The center is named after Rangel.

That’s right, the distinguished Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee wants $2 million of your money to establish the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service. The funding this earmark would go to would include, among other things, a library to house the Congressman’s future papers, a “well-furnished office” for him, and an endowment.

As Brit Hume put it, “he wants us to pay for a building named in his honor.”

The earmark violates the spirit, if not actual House Rules (Rule XXI, Clause 6) which says, “It shall not be in order to consider a bill, joint resolution, amendment, or conference report that provides for the designation or re-designation of a public work in honor of an individual then serving as a Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, or Senator.”

I asked the Chairman if it would be proper for me to request an earmark for the “John Campbell School of Fiscal Responsibility.” He said no “because i don't think you have been around enough to inspire a building like this in a school.”

That’s OK, I don’t really want one. I just don't believe that we should use the power and authority we have while in office to use taxpayer funds to create monuments to ourselves.

Last year, we had the “bridge to nowhere,” I guess this year it’s the “monument to me.”

Click below to see my exchange with Chairman Rangel:

Watch video.

The Democrats in Congress are anxious for universal health care, but to pay for this expensive and intrusive endeavor they have decided to increase taxes on tobacco, always a popular target. In order to raise $35 billion to $50 billion dollars to expand the state children's health insurance program (SCHIP), they will hike taxes on cigarettes from 39 cents per pack to $1 per, an increase of 256%. But along with cigarettes, their tax increase will also target cigars and although cigars are only a fraction of domestic tobacco sales, their tax increase on the cigar industry will go from a 4.8 cent per cigar cap to a $10 per cigar cap...that is a tax increase of 20,000 percent to fund government run health care.

If you thought you’d heard it all, the Republican Study Committee yesterday revealed that Rep. Shelley Berkly (D-NV) requested a $200,000 earmark for the Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy in Las Vegas, NV. The academy, whose website is inactive, was established in 2001 as a tuition free charter school for local "at-risk" children. While I’m sure this is a well-intentioned program, is it really the place of the federal government to subsidize a celebrity’s pet project? The last time I checked, Agassi was not struggling to make ends meet (in 2004, Forbes Magazine named him #27 on its list of richest people under 40, worth $162 million.) If Agassi wants to help "at risk" youth, more power to him, but should he be passing the bill to taxpayers? This earmark, like the rest of the roughly 1338 earmarks in the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill, needs to be stripped, and it’s up to my colleagues in Congress to do it. They must decide whether to continue their out-of-control spending or to restore fiscal sanity to our government. The ball’s in their court.

The non-partisan National Taxpayers Union (NTU) has posted a listing on their website listing the members of Congress who have supported every 2007 Flake (R-AZ) amendment to strike wasteful earmarks from appropriations bills. There are 42 members of Congress listed, including myself, as well as 1 Democrat, Jim Cooper of Tennessee. Perhaps Rep. Cooper can persuade some of his other "fiscally responsible" Blue Dog Democrats to join him in opposing the wasting of taxpayer funds.

The link to the NTU posting showing all 42 members is:

http://www.ntu.org/main/page.php?PageID=124

In dealing with the 12 appropriations bills that make up the discretionary portion of the federal budget, we are discussing billions of dollars. Amendments have been offered and voted on for 4 of the appropriations bills considered over the past month to reduce the growth of spending in each of these bills by just 1% and all have been defeated.

Why is this significant to the American taxpayer? If we could reduce the growth of spending in the federal budget by a mere 1%, we could save the taxpayer $30 billion dollars next year and that is a significant number.

Well, perhaps 1% was a little too much to ask for, so some of my taxpayer money-saving colleagues thought that perhaps we should try and reduce the growth of spending in each of these appropriations bills to only of a percent and offered amendments to the past 4 appropriations bills to do just that. I would take $15 billion in savings to the taxpayer anytime. But with nearly all of the Democratic caucus opposing these amendments to save the taxpayers money, they all have gone down in defeat.

Maybe of a percent would be more appealing?