The question is: how do we limit such waste? The obvious answer is limited government. Unfortunately, government is anything but limited today.
One constructive step was taken when the Bush White House made an announcement regarding earmarks on January 28, 2008. The White House Fact Sheet on the topic noted the following:
• “Earmarks are provisions often snuck into legislation not subject to legislative or public scrutiny and that often lead to wasteful Federal spending. Earmarks have tripled in number over the last decade and have increased spending by billions of dollars. Most earmarks are not even included in legislative text and are not subject to an up or down vote of Congress.”
• “On Tuesday, President Bush will issue an Executive Order directing Federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not voted on and included in a law approved by Congress. This will effectively end the common practice of concealing earmarks in so-called report language instead of placing them in the actual text of the bill. This means earmarks will be subject to votes, which will better expose them to the light of day and help constrain excessive and unjustified spending.”
• “The President in the State of the Union will pledge to veto any appropriations bill Congress sends him that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half. Last year, President Bush asked Congress to voluntarily cut the number and cost of earmarks in half and to refrain from slipping earmarks into committee reports that never come to a vote in Congress. Unfortunately, neither goal was met - the FY08 appropriations bills passed by Congress contained more than 11,700 earmarks totaling almost $17 billion. If the Executive Order does not induce Congress to be accountable and get excessive earmarks under control, this veto warning will help ensure real discipline against excess and waste.”
The fact that such an Executive Order is even necessary speaks volumes about how far out of control federal spending is.
President Bush should be applauded for taking this step in favor of fiscal sanity.
2 comments:
Two cheers for Bush, who is in pure "legacy" mode. For the the last 7 years he's been growing the federal budget with entitlements. About time he did something in the other direction.
One thing noted by Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) in this release (http://www.cagw.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=11236) is that federal agencies will be advised to move forward with current earmarks, and E.O. could end up being quite meaningless for the upcoming fiscal year. Thus, CAGW's "disappointment." Beyond that, of course, the next president could rescind the E.O. Oh well, let's hope the ball is moving in the right direction!
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