Americas Independent Movement

CCAGW Praises GOP for All-Out Earmark Moratorium
The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) commended House Republicans this month for enacting a unilateral ban on congressional earmarks, including those that are tariff- and tax-related, for fiscal year (FY) 2011. The GOP’s move came one day after House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-Wis.) and Defense Subcommittee Chairman Norm Dicks (D-Wash.) announced that the committee would no longer accept earmark requests directed to for-profit entities. “House Republicans have finally stepped up to rein in wasteful and corruptive earmarked spending,” declared CCAGW President Tom Schatz. “This move has been a long time coming and tens of thousands of wasteful earmarks worth hundreds of billions of dollars have been enacted while taxpayers waited for authentic leadership from members of Congress.” Due to the efforts of waste watchdogs, earmarks have been on a downward trajectory over the last four years, as documented by CAGW’s Pork Database. In FY 2006, Congress stuffed the appropriations bills with 9,963 earmarks totaling $29 billion. In FY 2009, the appropriations bills contained 10,160 earmarks costing $19.6 billion, a 32 percent reduction in dollar terms. During that same period, Congress began requiring that all earmarks be accompanied by the name of their congressional sponsor, a significant improvement in transparency.