When we created Sunlight we made a point to note that the issue of greater transparency for government actions was a nonpartisan issue. We saw support for it across party lines in our initial polling and we see it again today in an editorial in the conservative newspaper -- the Examiner --which endorses transparency for government grants and contracts. The paper strongly supports Sen. Tom Coburn's Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590) that would make all information about federal contracts and grants available to the public free of charge in a searchable, downloadable online format on the Internet. (Coburn is the original sponsor of the proposal, and the measure is co-sponsored by the unlikely bedfellows of Sens. Barack Obama, Tom Carper and John McCain, R-Ariz.)
Continue readingAfternoon News:
- Roll Call reports that the Justice Department has broken new ground by charging former congressional staffers-turned-lobbyists Tony Rudy and Neil Volz with violating the one-year ban on lobbying their former employers.
- The Los Angeles Times provides more information on the close relationship between former OMB and GSA employee David Safavian and criminal lobbyist Jack Abramoff. We are also reminded, through Safavian's emails, that Safavian never stops kissing up to Abramoff ("Let me know if there is ANYTHING I can do to help.")
- The Hill reports that 40 percent of earmarks would go unmarked and unnoticed thanks to loopholes in the lobbying and ethics "reform" bills passed by the Senate and the House.
- Top Bush donor Tom Noe wants to change his "not guilty" plea to a "guilty" plea in a case where he is charged with illegally funnelling money to the President's campaign, according to the Associated Press.
- The Washington Times interviews anti-pork crusader Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). Continue reading
Mid-Morning News:
- Josh Marshall looks into how Shirlington Limousines came to be connected to alleged-briber Brent Wilkes. The "missing link" appears to be former Rep. Bill Lowery (R-CA), who is now a lobbyist with close ties to Appropriations chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA).
- Following the money doesn't have to be limited to politics and the Episcopal Diocese of Washington has shown how to follow the money in the religious arena.
- Captain Ed is disheartened by the failure of Coburn's amendments to strip pork from the emergency supplemental. When talking about the Northrop Grumman earmark he asks the question that we all have in our head when thinking this, "Why does a corporation that made $2.4 billion in profit need another $200 million from American taxpayers to cover a loss they've absorbed in that same year?" Amen.
- citizen dc at Daily Kos writes about Karl Rove's "unexplained personal wealth". It is quite strange that a man who doesn't make so much money happens to own million dollar homes. Continue reading
Imam at a Pork Roast:
The Washington Post writes a profile of anti-pork Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) crusade to cut earmarks out of the emergency spending supplemental before the Senate. Only one of his amendments were ultimately successful and the lack of majority support from either party led him to withdraw many of his amendments challenging the earmarks. One of his challenges was to a $500 million earmark to aid rebuilding of a Northrop Grumman shipbuilding yard in Mississippi. The Wall Street Journal reports that the vote was 51-47 with both parties evenly dividing. One of the few successul amendments aimed at controlling spending was introduced by Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and co-sponsord by Coburn. The amendment restricts the number of no-bid contracts for rebuilding in the Gulf Coast and was agreed to with a 98-0 vote.
Continue readingEarmarks All Week Long:
This is shaping up to be earmark week in both Houses of Congress. Right now Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is decrying the earmarking practice on the Senate floor in the debate over the pork-laden emergency supplemental for Iraq and rebuilding after the twin Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times both have articles about pork projects and earmarks today. In the CS Monitor Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) says, "It's our only chance to maintain the majority. It really is," probably refering to a recent poll that shows that prohibiting members from "directing federal funds to specific projects benefiting only certain constituents," is one of the chief concerns of voters. I've previously written about my misgivings about this poll. I believe this poll is similar to polls which show that the public believes that Congress is completely corrupt, but not their representative or Senator. A man in Nebraska interviewed in the New York Times makes my point for me, "I am critical of the fact that the federal government is worried about paying for parking garages — and for a million other things like that ... But they are. And if they are, I want my senator to be in there. I want Nebraska to compete." And it's not just residents who don't really mind the pork, the lawmakers like it too, and use it to sway votes. The National Journal's Stan Collender states that in the current era of narrow majority rule earmarks and pet projects are necessary to maintain control of your caucus:
In an era of narrow majorities in both houses, when a handful of votes can make the difference between legislative success and failure, earmarks are an even more important way of doing business in Congress today than they have been in the past. They are now a key tool to getting anything done and eliminating them will make it even harder to get majority support. This points directly to one of the great fallacies of the current discussion about eliminating or limiting earmarks. In spite of all of the attention earmarks have received this year, there is not a great deal of support for doing anything about them. Just the opposite is true: most members of Congress don't want them limited and will fight hard to make sure it does not happen. Very few of the players in the House and Senate stand to gain anything if the limits under discussion are adopted. The White House and leadership will reduce their ability to attract the additional votes they need to accomplish their legislative agendas. The appropriations committees will reduce their power because one of the few things they have to trade will be taken away. Individual members of Congress will find that their ability to deliver things for their constituents will be reduced substantially.Certainly the leadership of both parties know this and are wary of those pushing to restrict the earmarking process. I think what would work best would be full transparency of earmarks followed by a peer-review process. Watching the current attempts by Sens. John McCain (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) attempt to strip earmark provisions out of the supplemental truly shows the merits of this process. Not only are these appropriations open to debate on the floor but the author must stand up and defend the appropriation. It is an ideal process for debating the merits and motives of a particuar line item. Perhaps with a little sunlight we wouldn't have members like Alan Mollohan (D-WV) and Pete Visclosky (D-IN) earmarking funds for campaign contributors, nor would we have jailed-Rep. Duke Cunningham's shady earmarks going without notice. Continue reading
Burns’ Massive Earmark; Coburn’s Amendment:
According to Knight Ridder Newspapers, Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT) inserted one of the largest earmarks into the controversial emergency spending legislation for Katrina and Iraq. Burns' earmark totals $3.9 billion and is meant "to help farmers hurt by any natural disaster, not just last year's hurricanes. The money includes aid to offset the high costs of oil, making agriculture one of the few industries to get energy-related assistance." Meanwhile Tom Coburn's (R-OK) amendment to kill the railroad relocation in Mississippi, derisively labeled the "railroad to nowhere", failed in a 49-48 vote. Some those voting to keep the $700 million railroad relocation earmark in the spending bill "were several of the 35 senators who had pledged earlier in the day to back Bush's veto if he cast it." UPDATE: NZ Bear at Porkbusters has a roll call of those voting against Coburn's amendment.
Continue readingGOP In-Fighting Over Earmark Reforms:
The Associated Press is reporting that the House Republicans have not been able to come to an agreement on the earmark reform provisions in the lobbying and ethics "reform" bill (if you want to know why I use quotations marks go here). In one corner is Appropriations Chair Jerry Lewis (R-CA) who is peeved that the earmark reform only targets earmarks originating out of his committee. Lewis declared that a reform that "does not touch on the 'Bridge to Nowhere' is not really reform." In the other corner is Mike Pence (R-IN), the spokesman for the most conservative Republicans. He said to CongressDailyPM that Lewis' argument against limiting earmark reform to the Appropriations Committee alone "feels to many of us like an effort to defeat earmark reform." Caught in the middle is Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) who is "confident" the bill will be "on the floor tomorrow" despite Republicans having "some work to do on earmark reform". In the Senate Tom Coburn (R-OK) is planning to offer amendments to the emergency spending bill directly targeting spending that he wants to cut, including the Gulf Coast railroad sought by Trent Lott, Thad Cochran, and Haley Barbour. (CongressDailyPM)
Continue readingEarmarks Down for FY 07; Coburn Pushes Accountability
Porkbusters has a great chart on their site showing how deep the reductions in earmarks are for the coming fiscal year. Their source says that earmarks have been reduced by 37% from fiscal year 2006, a huge drop considering that every year over the past decade they have grown exponentially. This also comes on the heels of yesterday’s Roll Call story on Appropriations Chairman Jerry Lewis (R-CA) enforcing new earmarking rules, restricting members to 5 earmark requests each.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has established a new website to push for accountability in how taxpayer funds are spent. The website states:
Each month, taxpayers "contribute" to the Federal government out of their hard-earned income. That "contribution" is taken by the Federal government under laws of Federal taxation, under threat of imprisonment and fines for those who refuse to pay their taxes. When a government wields this enormous amount of power, there is no room for any abuse of that power. Unaccountable spending of tax dollars is an abuse of power. Taxpayers have a right to demand accountability of all Federal agencies and programs.
Accountability means that an agency or program measurably achieves the mission it was created to achieve, in a cost-effective, efficient, and open manner.
As the branch of government that spends the taxpayers' money, Congress is ultimately responsible for ensuring accountability for those expenditures. When Congress fails to do its job overseeing current Federal spending, while at the same time, increasing that spending each year, citizens have been unconstitutionally deprived of appropriate checks and balances to which they are entitled as taxpayers.
Coburn's new site plans to issue reports on government waste, earmarks, and failures to account for government spending of taxpayer funds. It mirrors the House Government Reform Committee Minority Office website run by ranking Democrat Henry Waxman (D-CA) that regularly issues investigative reports on government actions and spending.
Continue readingIn Blog Daylight:
- One day after Jack Abramoff was sentenced to 70 months in prison House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) “offered a privileged resolution today calling for an immediate investigation into Abramoff's ties to members of Congress and staffers,” according to The Fix’s Chris Cillizza. The resolution was defeated 216-193 with the vote coming largely along party lines. Six Republicans joined the Democrats in voting for the resolution, two more voted “present”, while the five Democrats on the ethics committee, “presumably to preserve them from accusations of bias as they continue to urge an investigation into ethics breaches of House members linked to Abramoff,” also voted “present.”
- Mark Tapscott at Tapscott’s Copy Desk was mighty excited about an amendment to the Senate lobbying reform legislation that was proposed by Senators Tom Coburn (R-OK) and Barack Obama (D-IL) yesterday:
The Coburn/OBama amendment directs the U.S. Office of Management and Budget to establish a publicly available database of the more than $300 billion the federal government spends each year via contracts and grants to more than 30,000 groups, businesses and organizations.
Making public data about the recipients of that $300 billion chunk of the federal budget and how they spend the tax dollars would remove the biggest roadblock to public accountability that makes Pork Barrel spending possible - You can't track pork barrel if you don't who gets the money.
But then Trent Lott (R-MS) came along and killed the amendment:
Continue readingThe Senate's Rule 22 refers to the germaneness - i.e. relevance - of a proposed amendment. Translated from the Washington legislatese in which senators and congressmen so often hide, this means Lott thinks making sure the public can see who is getting more than $300 billion of their tax dollars has nothing to do with congressional ethics.
Put another way, Lott just told taxpayers to butt out.
Senate Passes Lobbying Reform; Bill Moves to House:
By a vote of 90-8 the Senate approved a lobbying reform bill that is being both praised and criticized from both sides of the aisle, according to the Washington Post. Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) declares, “This legislation contains very serious reform.” One of the eight ‘nay’ voters, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), begged to differ, “It's extremely weak.” The most notable ‘nay’ votes came from the strongest proponents of reform: Senators Barack Obama (D-IL), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Russ Feingold (D-WI), and McCain. The other four votes came from James Inhofe (R-OK), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), John Kerry (D-MA), and Jim DeMint (R-SC). Roll Call reported that Obama, the Democratic point man on reform was very unhappy, “Given that Mr. Abramoff just got five years in the pokey, the notion that this is the best we can do doesn’t make any sense.” Sen. Chris Dodd, a chief sponsor of the bill, sounded triumphant proclaiming in the New York Times, “There's a sign that's now up in front of the Capitol. It says ‘Not for Sale.’” Later, he admitted that the bill does not include “true meaningful campaign finance reform that breaks the link between the legislative favor seekers and the free flow of special interest private money.” Coburn made the best analogy, “You can wash the outside of the cup all you want. If the inside is still unclean, you're going to have the same problems.”
59063
