Earmarks

Republican lawmakers are gearing up to debate an uncomfortable question they won’t be able to put off much longer: Resurrect earmarks, or leave the controversial practice dead and buried?

House speaker Paul Ryan stepped in Wednesday to block an effort by some House Republicans to partially resurrect earmark spending, six years after the practice was banned. Here's the Wall Street Journal with the report:

As House Republicans meet on Wednesday to discuss their plans for next year, three of them are attempting to bring back the practice of earmarking.

The earmark, banished by House Republicans in 2011, could be making a comeback.

Writing at the New York Times, Thomas Edsall makes a provocative and counterintuitive argument about earmarks:

Republican primary challenges are all the rage these days. The GOP is reeling from House majority leader Eric Cantor’s loss last week in Virginia to David Brat, a relatively unknown economics professor who campaigned on local issues and against the GOP leadership’s flirtation with immigration…

During Wednesday night’s debate in Arizona, Rick Santorum had a chance to answer a recent barrage of criticisms from Mitt Romney on Santorum's record on earmarks. While Santorum may have won the analytical arguments, his opponents may have won the dramatic exchanges.

On a conference call Monday afternoon, a Mitt Romney campaign surrogate—Tim Pawlenty, the former Minnesota governor—criticized Rick Santorum for being part of the “big-spending establishment in Congress and in the influence-peddling industry that surrounds Congress,” and for previously supporting…

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has earned the endorsement of Arizona congressman and 2012 Senate candidate Jeff Flake. From a Romney press release:

The New York Times has an interesting story today on how budget negotiations have been affected by the lack of congressional earmarks:

Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Daniel Inouye announced a two-year earmark moratorium:

Oklahoma's junior senator Tom Coburn has compiled a "working database" of every earmark in the omnibus appropriations bill in the form of an Excel spreadsheet. Here are some of the most expensive earmarks listed:

Congressman John Murtha died on February 8, 2010. But, as the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports, the prolific earmarker might be getting one more:

ABC's Jake Tapper reports:

I can't believe the Democratic Congress will be foolish and hubristic enough to go ahead and jam though the omnibus appropriations bill with its 6,488 earmarks totaling nearly $8.3 billion. But if they do: Shouldn't the Republican House leadership commit to making H.R. 1 in the next Congress a bill…

Well, this is just depressing:

David Freddoso reports that just 39 senators voted for an earmark moratorium sponsored by Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). Fifty-six senators, including eight Republicans, voted to keep earmarks (names of senators up for reelection in 2012 are in bold): 

Signs of a new political culture abound. Call it the era of “reverse pork barrel.”

Every time I hear Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell dismiss concerns over earmarking, I think of his fellow Kentucky Republican Hal Rogers, the senior House appropriator who has loaded pork into the federal budget.

With less than favorable polling for his upcoming reelection bid, Democratic senator Jon Tester of Montana will be a top 2012 Republican target. In 2006, Tester narrowly bested Republican incumbent Conrad Burns by just over 3,000 votes, and a large part of Tester's campaign against Burns--who…

After sending mixed signals on whether he'd support the proposed earmark moratorium in the Senate, Senator John Thune finally came out strongly in favor of it:

Quin Hillyer writes this letter to the editor in response to Kenneth Tomlinson's latest piece, "Lend Me Your Earmarks," which appears in this week's issue of THE WEEKLY STANDARD:

A statement from President Obama on earmark reform: 

A statement from Maine's senior senator Olympia Snowe echoes Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: 

On the floor of the Senate moments ago, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell endorsed the proposed earmark moratorium that the GOP Senate caucus will vote on tomorrow: 

On Tuesday, Republicans in the Senate (as well as those who are about to join the Senate) will vote in a closed door session on whether to support an earmark moratorium, which has been recommended by Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn. The most comprehensive list of the current whip count has been…

Ben Smith has a good piece on John Thune’s vulnerabilities as a 2012 presidential candidate. Smith’s post raises the central question: Is Thune too “establishment” for the current political environment?

Those who favor small government, less government spending and, in particular, getting rid of earmarks are getting pretty excited about the prospect of Harry Reid losing his election in Nevada on Tuesday. Brian Baker, president of both Taxpayers Against Earmarks and the Ending Spending Fund, emails: