-By Warner Todd Huston
Senator Jim DeMint (R- SC) has launched the 100,000 Blogger challenge for earmark reform this week. I hope that each and every one of you out there interested in putting a halt to the drunken spending indulged in by Congress go to the Senator’s new website to sign the petition. Or, use the handy widget below to do so…
Be proud to say, I support Senator Jim DeMint’s fight for commonsense earmark reform.
Now, earmark reform is a really hard concept to get across to the American people. After all, it isn’t as sexy an issue as abortion or illegal aliens. It is also harder to explain. But we really must try.
For the uninitiated, an earmark is a sum of tax money inserted into a bill in Congress. This is tax money to be spent on some pet issue that a Congressman wants to send to his pals and buddies. It is basically graft for sale to the highest bidder. Worse, these earmarks do not have to have anything to do with the bill they are inserted in. So, if you have a bill to pay for our troop’s health care, for instance, a Congressman can slide in a little section that calls for tax money to go to that Congressman’s favorite pork project — like when Ted Stevens inserted millions into a bill to pay for a bridge to be built to a nearly empty island in Alaska. This is pork-barrel spending at its worst and we need to stop it dead in its tracks.
So, climb aboard this reform movement, folks. Let’s SINK THE EARMARK!