-By Warner Todd Huston
Well, after Senate GOP minority leader Mitch McConnell agreed to go along with the anti-earmark policy that the Tea Party voters were urging, the Senate voted to ban earmarked spending.
Earmarks are those little spending clauses added to bills that otherwise have nothing at all to do with the earmark and are emblematic of the wasteful spending indulged by Congress.
According to Roll Call:
Senate Republicans threw down the earmark gauntlet Tuesday by adopting a resolution calling on Democrats to adopt a voluntary ban moments after they adopted an identical ban of their own.
The challenge, authored by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), calls for Democrats to swear off requests for “a congressionally directed spending item, limited tax benefit or limited tariff benefit” during the 112th Congress.
Adopted by voice vote by the Republican Conference, the challenge came shortly after GOP Senators agreed to an identical ban proposed by Sen. Jim DeMint (S.C.). Although Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.) objected to the ban — and expressed his strong opposition to it during the GOP’s closed-door meeting — he did not block a voice vote on the measure.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has repeatedly dismissed demands for a moratorium on earmarks over the last several days.
Notice, folks, that the Democrats want to continue unabated the wasteful spending by our representatives in both the House and the Senate. Democrats live to waste our tax dollars.
It is heartening that the Republicans have heard the voters and are willing to follow that directive to begin the long, hard road to end wasteful spending. Certainly eliminating earmarks are a tiny step in the right direction, but it is a step and a welcome one, indeed.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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