In a move to break with Republicans' big-spending past, House Republicans voted Thursday to ban their members this year from requesting earmarks, or pork-barrel spending projects.
House Republicans, who passed the moratorium by voice vote in a closed-door meeting, said they have now put pressure on the rest of Congress -- Republicans in the Senate, and Democrats in both chambers -- to follow their lead.
"Today, House Republicans took an important step toward showing the American people were serious about reform by adopting an immediate, unilateral ban on all earmarks," said House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican. "But the more difficult battle lies ahead, and thats stopping the spending spree in Washington that is saddling our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars in debt."
The House GOP's ban applies to earmarks in spending, tax and authorization bills. It lasts for the rest of this year.
Rep. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican, who has for years conducted a lonely fight against earmarks, said Republican leaders will enforce the ban by refusing to forward any earmark requests from their members to the committees that write the bills.
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I want to say this is all political theater, but then again if I did, I would have to say the same about Obama's spending freeze. So I guess I'll say good first move and we'll see how things progress on both sides. Maybe we'll start to see some true bipartisanship on this issue.
ReplyDeleteSpending must be stopped all together, otherwise, the money that would go to earmarks will just go somewhere else.
ReplyDelete