Common sense tells you that true earmark reform would be popular with the American people. Politico's Patrick O'Connor highlights polling numbers that backs this up. A fresh Winston Group poll finds that 78 percent of Americans support the disclosure of earmarks. Not terribly surprising...But my question is, what's the other 22 percent thinking?
Congressional Republicans, led by Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) have been holding the Democrats feet to the fire on earmark reform. You don't have to hire a high-dollar political consultant to figure out that crusading against earmark abuse is a good issue for the GOP to regain the fiscal responsible credentials they lost during its years of congressional control.
When the Congress passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007 the Senate short circuited the reform, making sure that their earmarks will not receive meaningful public scrutiny. The Senate needs to read the mood of the public and correct this stunt pronto. Newly-elected Sen. Claire McCaskill proposes that senators be required to list the details of all earmarks they propose on their Websites. This would allow the public to hold their own elected officials accountable for the way tax dollars were being spent. But I don't see that she's introduced legislation to require this yet.Continue reading
“Turn the camera off!”
The first rule of earmarking is don't talk about earmarking. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones, the House Ethics Committee Chairwoman, shows how it's done. (hat tip: Air Congress)
Continue readingThe Favor Factory: Earmarks and Campaign Cash Connections
Following the Favor Factory
There's more earmark money in Defense appropriations bills than anywhere else, and the members of the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee have their hands on the spigots. Over at RealTime, Anu finds something surprising: While three members, Rep. John Murtha, Rep. Jim Moran and Rep. Pete Visclosky took in an average of more than $100,000 in political donations from employees and PACs of the companies to whom they directed earmarks in the first half of 2007, the remaining members averaged a paltry $12,800. Why the disparity? Will the contribution totals from earmark recipients to the campaigns of their benefactors increase when the Federal Election Commission receives the next round of disclosure reports? Are Murtha, Moran and Visclosky more beloved by their earmark recipients? Find out who gave to the politicians, who got the earmarks and what they were for. Anu relied on earmark data from EarmarkWatch.org (generously supplied by our partners, Taxpayers for Common Sense), campaign finance data from both the Center for Responsive Politics and the FEC.
Continue reading(Federal) Help Wanted
Via the invaluable blog devoted to developments in federal government ethics, the IEC Journal, I came across this Web course for federal workers on the issues raised by working with government contractors:
Increasingly, private sector contractor employees are being used to accomplish the business of Government. This trend shows no signs of slowing down. These contractor employees can work either off-site or even in the same location as you. This may sometimes cause certain ethical issues to arise which you'll need to think about.It is important for you to know about the ethics rules and principles that focus ...
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Getting Serious About Earmarks
Looks like our colleagues over at Taxpayers for Common Sense are getting fed up about earmarks. In the case of Rep. Don Young’s $10 million earmark to benefit a Florida political contributor, they have filed a complaint with the House Ethics Committee. TCS raises the question over how the earmark found its way onto the 2005 transportation bill after it had passed both houses of Congress.
Continue readingMore than 400 Researchers Investigate Earmarks Using EarmarkWatch.org
In the week since we launched EarmarkWatch.org, more than 400 citizen researchers have dug into earmarks, answering hundreds of questions, making dozens of comments, and shedding light on everything from what in the world is a naturally occurring retirement community (it's considered to be a low-cost approach to facilitating healthy aging) to finding a potential family connection in a New Jersey museum earmark (the museum is housed in a mansion that was once the residence of the sponsoring member's father). They've asked why Congress needs to earmark $1,000,000 to buy wool socks for the Marines and how exactly New York City's American Museum of Natural History is going to spend $1,000,000 on Advanced Research to Further National Security Goals. We had 25,000 page views last week (the aforementioned sock earmark was the most-looked-at), more than 100 posted comments or additional research (it looks like the $3,000,000 for a Flat-Rack for the Marine Corps was the most commented on, and no, I didn't know what one was either), and one last factoid that makes me feel there are lots of kindred souls out there: The bulk of our intrepid earmark researchers are doing most of their digging at night. So am I -- EarmarkWatch.org is exciting, educational, and endlessly entertaining.
Continue readingSenate Puts the Anonymity Back in Earmarks
Wondering where the Senate Defense earmarks are in EarmarkWatch.org? Though our collaborators and friends at Taxpayers for Common Sense have compiled a list here, one thing you'll notice is that, unlike the House Defense earmarks contained in Earmark Watch, the Senate disclosures don't list the actual recipient of the earmark, but rather generic project names. So while we know that Sen. Maria Cantwell and Sen. Patty Murray earmarked $2 million for "U.S. Army Extended Cold Weather Clothing System [ECWCS] Hand Protection System" (gloves, presumably), we don't know who will be making those gloves, whether the glovemaker hired lobbyists or had its executives contribute to Cantwell and Murray's campaigns, or were otherwise hand-in-glove with their earmark bestowers. That's because of a slight change in wording that was made in the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2007, one that the Senate, apparently, prefers--and which all but does away with meaningul earmark disclosure. Read on for more details...
Continue readingInvestigate Earmarks with EarmarkWatch.org!
Wondering who's getting all the earmarks? Who's giving them and why? Do earmarks meet pressing needs or pay off political favors? And which are pure pork? EarmarkWatch.org, an innovative new tool from the Sunlight Foundation and Taxpyers for Common Sense, lets you find out for yourself. Using EarmarkWatch.org, you can exercise citizen oversight of Congress. Dig into the 47 earmarks worth $166,500,000 that Rep. John Murtha inserted (and figure out which benefit campaign contributors). Or take a close look at the $100,000 earmark that Sen. David Vitter secured for an organization that promotes creationism in Louisiana schools. Or the $37 million in earmarks that include defense giant Northrop Grumman as a beneficiary. Right now, you can investigate earmarks from the House Defense Appropriations Bill and the House and Senate versions of the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations bills. Using a host of online resources, you can find out whether recipients of earmarks hired lobbyists, made campaign contributions to members of Congress, or won federal contracts and grants. You can also add information to eamarks others have researched, or comment on what others have found. EarmarkWatch.org provides you with powerful tools to scrutinize and evaluate thousands of earmarks. To get started, create an account and pick an earmark.
Continue readingMore Earmarks Coincidentally Conferred on Campaign Contributors
The other day a good friend reminded me that transparency only works if people use the information. Brian Faler of Bloomberg News does just that.
The $2 million earmarked for the Samueli Institute for Information Biology, started by Broadcom Corp. Chairman Henry Samueli and his wife Susan, was inserted into the measure by Democratic Representative Peter Visclosky. The Samueli family has contributed thousands of campaign dollars to Visclosky, whose Indiana district is nowhere near either the Alexandria, Virginia, institute or Broadcom, the Irvine, California-based maker of chips for wireless phones and other devices.It's a good thing that earmarks allow members meet the needs of their districts. (In fairness to Visclosky, some to the money he's funneling to the Samueli Institute will be funneled by them to the School of Medicine Northwest of Indiana University, which is in Visclosky's district. It's also worth noting that stories like this are possible largely because of the new rules that the House of Representatives adopted in January, bringing more transparency to earmarks.) Continue reading
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