CCAGW Supports Permanent Earmark Moratorium

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, the Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) expressed its enthusiastic support for Senators Pat Toomey’s (R-Pa.) and Claire McCaskill’s (D-Mo.) efforts to enact a permanent extension of Congress’s current earmark moratorium. On February 2, 2011, Sens. Toomey and McCaskill introduced Amendment #1472 to S. 2038, the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act. That amendment failed by a vote of 40-59 in the Senate, but will soon be reintroduced. Thirteen Republicans were among the nay votes that killed the extension.

“CCAGW has targeted earmarks for elimination since 1984,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz. “A February 6 Washington Post report, which revealed that 33 current members of Congress have directed federal spending toward their own personal property, made it painfully clear that earmarking still ranks among the most wasteful, corruptive practices routinely carried out by Congress. Earmarks consistently go to powerful lawmakers looking to score political points back home, funneling taxpayer dollars away from national priorities and toward frivolous pet projects in the process. CCAGW will continue to expose any supposed ‘fiscal conservative’ who stands in the way of eliminating earmarks for good.”

Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 was supposed to be entirely earmark-free, but CCAGW found dozens of expenditures that meet its definition of earmarks in the House and Senate versions of the FY 2012 appropriations bills. In addition, members of Congress have drastically reduced transparency. Projects are no longer listed in a separate location apart from the text of the bill, and it is far more difficult to expose them. However, by any definition, the moratorium on congressionally-defined earmarks has led to dramatic decreases in the number and dollar amount of earmarks.

“Like taxpayers, we had hoped to have put earmarks to bed when the moratorium was adopted,” added Schatz. “But, if the clamoring to repeal the moratorium by past serial earmarkers is any indication, the moratorium, while imperfect, is helping to eliminate pork. If the moratorium is extended, taxpayers can rest assured that CCAGW will still be on the lookout, monitoring how members of Congress may attempt to circumvent the new law through ‘phonemarking,’ ‘lettermarking,’ or other opaque techniques, and reporting their transgressions.”

The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.