House Democrats Were Only Joking About That Open Government Thing

During their 2006 political campaigns, Democratic House hopefuls promised a "new era" of open government, but less than 6 months after being elected these new and old Democrats are still hiding 'pet' political projects from the people who elected them.

House Democrats are all ready breaking the first rule they implemented when taking over control of the U.S. House of Representatives. This first rule clearly states that any special 'ear marks' for pet pork barrel project are to be clearly identified in any spending bill. However, this new era of Democratic rule in the House has committee chairpersons advising their fellow Democrats to hold off adding their spending request for pet projects until it is too late for anyone to challenge these spending earmarks.

Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., says those requests for dams, community grants and research contracts for favored universities or hospitals will be added spending measures in the fall. That is when House and Senate negotiators assemble final bills to send to President Bush.

Such spending requests may seem small when taken one at a time, but when you add them all together these pork barrel spending measures cost the U.S. taxpayers billion of dollars. Because the Democrats control the committees, these secret committee moves often go unopposed because opposition lawmakers will not have the chance to voice their opinions before these pork laden spending bills are voted on later this month. House-Senate compromise bills then come due in September, and these bills cannot be changed and are subject to only one hour of debate unless a precluding challenge is given to any individual project. Rep. Obey said he had to take these steps because the Appropriations Committee members and staff just does not have the time to review roughly 36,000 pet pork barrel project requests that have overwhelmed the Appropriations Committee. This committee has all ready been tasked with issuing a catch-all spending clean-up bill dealing with last years budget business, and this committee must also deal with working on the just agreed upon Iraq war spending measure.

"It's going to take weeks to get that screening done and I'm the person that has to sign off," Obey told his colleagues at a committee meeting just before Memorial Day. "As long as I'm in charge, I'm going to make doggone sure that we do everything possible to screen every project."

Obey went on to say quite a few lawmakers requested more time to submit their official pork request in order to have these request reviewed for inclusion into the House spending package. Budget watchdog groups who 'scrub' appropriations bills for pork are outraged at the steps taken by these Democratic House leaders.

"Who appointed him judge and jury of earmarks?" Tom Schatz, president of the Citizens Against Government Waste. "What that does is leave out the public's input."

This move by Obey is in direct conflict with new House rules established by the Democrats themselves when it comes to dealing with pork projects for home voting districts. These rules clearly state any pork barrel spending appropriation must be made available for public review when the corresponding spending bill is being debated. These rules also require the requesting representative to explain in writing why this particular pet pork money is necessary. The requesting representative must also attach a certified letter stating they or their spouse will not gain financially if spending for their pork project is approved.

Republicans say Democrats are skirting the new disclosure rules. Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-CA, the Appropriations Committee's former chairman and now its top Republican, said Obey's move represents "a complete lack of transparency."

Republicans say they will employ guerrilla tactics if necessary to push their point during House debates.

"This is not more sunlight. This is actually keeping earmarks secret until it's too late to do anything about it," griped Rep. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz. "It will be impossible for anybody to challenge any of what will be thousands and thousands and thousands of earmarks."

Republicans say they plan to block any appropriations bills from reaching the House-Senate compromise meeting if this is when lawmakers plan to fill these bills with their pork additives. Sen. Robert Bryd, D-WVa, is also upset over this move by Obey because he does not want to wait until September or October before finding out what bills had the hometown pork fat trimmed. Appearently, the former KKK member must fear the JC Penney white sale will be over by then.