Omnibusting: Omnibus Spending Bill, Earmarks, Pork and Budget Gimmicks

President Bush’s suggestion that he would explore ways to stop wasteful earmarks in the $555-billion omnibus spending bill has been meet with praise from conservatives. Here’s just a sampling what’s being said about the idea of an executive order halting earmarks.

Weekly Standard Executive Editor Fred Barnes:

President Bush will take on congressional earmarks — you know, that wasteful special spending that members of Congress stuff in the budget. And here’s what he can do. He can nullify thousands of them because they’re not technically a part of the budget. They’re separate from it. He’s going to do it.

Washington Examiner:

It appears President Bush has a legal tool at his disposal that could be quickly employed to eliminate most congressional earmarks with the stroke of a pen, and it comes to him courtesy of the Congressional Research Service (CRS). The never-before-used tool is a presidential executive order directing federal departments and agencies not to spend any tax dollars that aren’t explicitly appropriated in the text of a bill… The monstrous spending bill was more than 3,500 pages long, counting its associated reports, with nearly 700 of those pages being lists of 9,400-plus earmarks. Together with the earmarks included in a defense bill approved earlier in the year, the first session of the 110th Congress approved more than 11,000 earmarks, the second-highest annual total in recent years.

Wall Street Journal:

Our suggestion is that Mr. Bush instruct his cabinet not to spend money on earmarks that aren’t specifically mentioned in the language of the spending bill. Most are listed in accompanying Appropriations Committee reports that lack the force of law. The point of this Congressional ruse, in part, is to let Members “air-drop” earmarks at the last minute and thus escape scrutiny by other Members who might try to expose their “Bridges to Nowhere” on the House or Senate floor. Mr. Bush assailed this habit in this year’s State of the Union address, and the Members cheered. So why not force Congress to live up to its applause?

Americans for Prosperity Policy Director Phil Kerpen:

Back in 1987, Reagan’s budget director, Jim Miller (who is on my organization’s board of directors), devised a simple solution to the earmark problem: uphold the U. S. Constitution… Miller instructed executive agencies to comply with the law, the actual legislative language, but to disregard the earmarks in the accompanying reports and to instead spend funds on their priorities based on project merit and the president’s own priorities. Capitol Hill erupted in protest, threatening all sorts of retaliation if their pork wasn’t protected… President Bush is extraordinarily well-situated to complete what Reagan started, and put an end to report language earmarks… Mr. President, all I want for Christmas is an executive order de-funding earmarks. Please?

Larry Kudlow:

In the most dramatic statement of his holiday news conference, Mr. Bush said he will not stand for the continuing congressional proliferation of pork-barrel earmarks… This is huge. The statute of limitations for Republican overspending, over-earmarking, and over-corrupting that caused huge congressional losses in last year’s campaign will not run out until the GOP shows taxpayers that it again can be trusted on the key issues of limited government and lower taxes. In these matters, Republicans must be holier than the pope.

Denver Post:

Similar conflicts of interest and unseemly handouts can be averted by curbing pork-barrel projects. Yet citizens are left to wonder why no steps been taken to restrain this obvious abuse of power. Evidently, there is bipartisan agreement when it comes to pork: more is better. The president, who has a well-earned reputation for out-of-control spending himself, has claimed he will investigate ways to deal with earmarks. We hope he does. As it stands now, the only winners are politicians and their special interests. The loser, as always, is the average taxpayer.

Dan Thomasson of Scripps Howard News Service:

Congress, that irrepressible spending machine that is held in lower public esteem than even the current war-strapped president, has been busy stuffing constituent Christmas stockings full of goodies and if you happen to be one of the lucky ones, the coming year should be a good one. That is if George W. Bush doesn’t issue an order to his troops to ignore most of the outlandish projects tacked on to the $555 billion omnibus appropriations bill just passed and the $459 billion defense appropriations measure adopted last month. Could he do that? Probably. Should he do that? He most definitely should.

Syndicated Columnist George Will:

Hell bent on driving its approval rating into single digits, Congress adjourned after passing an omnibus spending bill larded with at least 8,993 earmarks costing at least $7.4 billion — the precise number and amount will be unclear until implications of some obscure provisions are deciphered. The gusher of earmarks was a triumph of bipartisanship, which often is a synonym for kleptocracy.