I think if there is anything you can glean from this Blog is that I believe Americans are fed up with having a government that spends too much of their tax dollars behind closed doors and in secrecy. If an earmark is worthy of one cent of taxpayer money, it must be able to withstand public scrutiny. 

Republicans are circulating a petition that would force House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to allow all earmarks to be publicly disclosed and debated.  The petition requires 218 signatures,  in order to succeed; the support of fiscally responsible House Democrats is needed.

So far 193 Members have signed on.  Unfortunately, after Democrats won the majority by campaigning on the promise of more transparency in Congress, there hasn’t been one Democrat to add their name to the petition as of now.

Disclosure alone will not solve the earmark problem. But it’s a start, and Democrats refuse to even do that.

Earlier this week I joined chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC) Jeb Hensarling and Senator Jim DeMint in cosponsoring the Government Shutdown Prevention Act.

This is a law I think we desperately need. The last time Congress fully funded the government by the deadline was 1994, in fact 22 of the last 25 years, Congress has failed to finish its most basic job it is expected to do before the end of the fiscal year.  Year after year, the biggest spenders in Congress use the threat of a government shutdown to scare seniors, veterans, and others in order to pass more spending bills bloated with earmarks.

Currently, the President and the Democrat Congress are separated by a $23 billion difference on the appropriation bills.

This act provides for an automatic continuing resolution to provide spending authority by either enacting appropriations bills or a continuing resolution.  The spending level for each program would be set at the lower of the spending levels provided in the previous fiscal year, or the House and Senate approved spending bills, as has become routine.  The government would continue operating at last fiscal year’s level, saving the taxpayers billions of dollars.

In previous blogs, I have discussed the Democrats’ PayGO rule and characterized it as nothing more than a gimmick and budgetary ploy to fool the taxpayer. I now want to provide with you two examples to highlight what I am talking about:

1) Farm Bill Reauthorization (HR 2419)

What it does: 
-     Increases Spending by a total of $18.8 billion over 10 years
-     Raises taxes on US business by $7.5 billion over 10 years
-     Increases fees on U.S energy companies by $6.1 billion

PayGo Gimmick:  This bill pays for the increased spending by delaying farm and crop insurance payments and accelerating crop insurance premium payments for a $4.8 billion in “savings”. The problem is that these “savings” do not really exist! Payment schedules are simply modified to comply with PayGO.

2) Terrorism Risk Insurance Revision and Extension Act (HR 2761)

What it does:   
-    Increases net direct spending by approximately $8.4 billion over the next 10 years assuming a terrorist attack happens during this period, but this is a modest estimate, if an attack was worse than predicted it could run much higher.

PayGo Gimmick: This bill pretends that the government does not have to cover the losses unless a second bill, in the wake of a tragic terrorist attack, is passed by a future Congress.

When the PayGo rule was passed by the majority, Republicans cautioned that it would only promote increased spending, higher taxes, and budgetary tricks.

This is exactly what has happened. Apparently budget gimmicks combined with higher taxes equates to fiscal discipline. 

Go figure.

A recent report highlighted some interesting information on both earmarks and campaign contributions. Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), who is the chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, directed $114.5 million in earmarks to 26 private entities. All 26 of the entities contributed to Rep. Murtha's campaign totaling $413,250 since the beginning of 2005 with $100,750 of these contributions coming in the 2 weeks before the March 16th deadline to file earmark requests.

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) is also on the Defense subcommittee and also received campaign contributions from every private entity he directed an earmark to and Rep. Bud Cramer (D-AL) received campaign contributions from 15 of the 16 private entities he directed earmarks to.

On the Republican side of the Appropriations committee, Rep. Bill Young (FL) who is the ranking member on the Defense Subcommittee received campaign contributions from 28 of the 30 groups he directed earmarks to and Rep. David Hobson (OH) received campaign contributions from 11 of the 14 private entities he directed earmarks to.

I will let you draw your own conclusions.

The Defense Appropriations Bill in the Senate has been unveiled and frankly, it is staggering.  Senate appropriators disclosed approximately 936 earmarks totaling $5.1 billion.  Republican Senator Ted Stevens led the earmarking pack with $189 million, followed by Democrat Senators Daniel Inouye at $183 million & Robert Byrd at $166 million.  Interestingly enough, these three Senators represent the states of Alaska, Hawaii, and West Virginia whose combined total population would just barely pass Oregon which ranks 27th in population among the 50 states.

What I find most interesting is not the disclosed earmarks, but rather those that are undisclosed.  Typically the total earmarks in an appropriations bill can be more than double with the inclusion of undisclosed earmarks.  The House version of the Defense appropriations bill contained $3 billion in earmarks, but adding in undisclosed projects in the senate raised the total to the $6.5 billion neighborhood. 

Admitting you have problem is always the first step.  Until Congress and the appropriators agree to disclose each and every earmark for public review and debate, we cannot begin to have meaningful earmark reform.

We just finished debate and voted on HR 1852, the Expanding American Ownership Act of 2007.  Ordinarily this would not raise any eyebrows, in fact a similar bill passed 415-7 during the 109^th Congress.  However as I blogged on August 1st (scroll down to that date to see the full blog) the divisive difference involved today is the creation of a proposed new entitlement program,  which has commonly been referred to as The National Affordable Housing "Slush" Fund.  The final bill passed by a vote of 348-72.  There were several good aspects of this bill which can help with the current housing crisis, but in the end, I was among the 72 who voted against it for the reasons I listed in the August 1st posting.

An article published yesterday in Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper that reports on Congress, noted that the recently passed Defense Appropriations Bill in the House contained 36 earmarks for Congressmen John Murtha (D-PA), Jim Moran (D-VA), and Peter Visclosky (D-IN) totaling over $100 million dollars. Interestingly enough, all 36 earmarks are directed at clients of a lobbying firm founded and comprised of former top aides to all three Congressmen.  This lobbying firm, their employees, and their clients have all combined to raise over $542,000 this year alone for these three members of Congress, dubbed the “classic Washington iron triangle” by Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense.

By a voice vote, the Senate Finance Committee today approved legislation to raise our country’s debt limit by $850 million. This comes a day after the Senate approved its version of the Fiscal Year 2008 Transportation and Housing and Urban Development appropriations bill, which is $3.1 billion more than President Bush’s request. Nothing more sends the message that we need to cut spending than our having to increase the federal debt limit.

It’s time this Congress and the Democratic leadership put two and two together to reduce spending, not increase it.

Congress has only been back in session for a week and already, they are finding new ways to waste your money….this time to the tune of $4 billion. 

 The West Los Angeles Medical Center, sits on some of the most valuable real estate on the West Coast.  Many of you may have seen it on the west side of the 405 freeway.  The 387 acres that make up the campus, neighbors some of Hollywood’s biggest names.  The medical center is home to one of the largest Veterans Affairs facilities in the country.  The compound is so large, that roughly 21 out of 91 buildings are vacant.  In 2002, the Department of Veterans Affairs studied its infrastructure and discovered that the unused portion of the campus might better be used for its real estate value.  It was estimated that the 200 acres, could yield $4 billion dollars in revenue, increasing economic growth on urban land that is currently unused.  Veterans could use these funds to help provide better and more comprehensive care to our veterans nationwide.  

The Veterans Affairs administration has yet to make a decision on the land, but already a provision has been slipped into the military construction and veteran’s affairs bill, in order to block the sale or lease of the land.  This proviso placed in the third paragraph of the Senate bill comes as a result of powerful lobbying interests in West LA, and from complaints from nearby Hollywood heavyweights that any changes would block the view, increase traffic flow, and generally contribute to the discontent of the surrounding mansions.

On the Senate Floor 25 Senators (only 1 Democrat) stood up to this clear waste of taxpayer resources.  The 75 Senators who opposed this, would be happier raising your taxes than utilizing available resources.  These resources can directly benefit our veterans who both need and deserve the resulting revenue.

This is just one example of many where government could raise revenue and reduce spending without raising taxes. Whether it is Hollywood, unions or others, they all would prefer to raise your taxes

The recent bridge collapse in Minnesota has caused some warranted alarm as to the structural integrity of other bridges throughout the United States.  According to the National Bridge Inventory, approximately 12% of American bridges are structurally deficient.  

Chairman Jim Oberstar of the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee has recently advocated an increase in the gasoline tax by 5 cents per gallon dedicated to a new bridge repair fund. 

Currently, you pay a federal gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon each time you fill up. A majority of this tax is placed in the highway maintenance portion of the Highway Trust Fund, which is designed to maintain safe roads and bridges.  However in recent years, Congress funneled some of this tax money directly into the general treasury even while transportation spending by the federal government increased from $39 billion in 1996 to $70 billion in 2006.  That’s a 77% increase over 10 years; far outgrowing the inflation rate or the growth rate in the overall federal budget.  

Perhaps rather than rushing almost instinctively to create a new tax, Congress should examine the current spending priorities in transportation funding and get rid of wasteful Davis-Bacon laws requiring a "union wage", which can be up to 28% greater than the prevailing wage for federal government contracts.  The federal government would then be free to competitively bid contracts that are better, more efficient, and less costly.   The money saved can be applied to the necessary federal highway infrastructure improvements.

Recently, the non-partisan publication "Congressional Quarterly" reported that the Pentagon is receiving earmarked appropriations it has not asked for.

Most of these earmarks are destined for pet projects within certain congressional districts, undoubtedly slated to meet political ends.

 In fact, 67 of the House Democrats who voted in favor to cut defense spending by over 20% are the very ones who have added $485 million worth of earmarked defense appropriations for various companies located within their home districts.

 Blatant contradiction?  Many of these Democrats have already defined the defense budget as “bloated” and “overextended”, but apparently the same characterization does not apply for such projects.

 These earmarks put unneeded pressure on the Pentagon’s desired budget.  In order to keep the overall total amount appropriated from rising, Congress cuts funding for programs that the Pentagon actually wants!

 I don’t know about you, but I think the military is more qualified to make the call on what programs stay and what goes.