Appropriations Chairman Inouye says he will enforce earmark ban in Senate

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Washington Post:

After months of resistance, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel K. Inouye (D-Hawaii) announced Tuesday that he will enforce a ban on earmarks in all Senate spending bills, ending a cherished practice by lawmakers that had become a symbol of wasteful excess.

The Senate moratorium, which will remain in place for two years, follows a similar move by the GOP-led House and a veto threat by President Obama in his State of the Union address last week. It's the latest signal that Democrats are feeling political pressure on the issue of deficit reduction and are willing to consider measures that until recently they dismissed as posturing by their Republican adversaries.

Inouye had long argued that Congress has a constitutional imperative to direct spending as lawmakers deem necessary. Surrendering that power, the argument goes, would only strengthen the executive branch. Just last week, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who has delivered billions of dollars in perks to his home state, dismissed Obama's veto threat as an "applause line" and urged him to "back off" the issue.

But on Tuesday, Inouye said: "The handwriting is clearly on the wall. . . . Given the reality before us, it makes no sense to accept earmark requests that have no chance of being enacted into law."
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Change we can believe in! Heh!

[clearvision]

I heard somewhere they just changed the way they do it. Rather than designate a specific activity for the money in the bill, they put in extra money and send a note or call the agency head getting the money and politely say what they want done with it.

[NCTexan]

I heard somewhere they just changed the way they do it. Rather than designate a specific activity for the money in the bill, they put in extra money and send a note or call the agency head getting the money and politely say what they want done with it.

A typical DEM under-the-table transaction that's the hallmark of Obama's "most transparent" regime.