Formula Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. BRAUN. Mr. President, I rise today to fix a troubling loophole in our earmark rules. Earmarks are something I strongly oppose. I believe they breed corruption, overspending, waste, and abuse.

There has been bipartisan concern about the earmarking process for decades. In 2007, the process got so out of control that even earmarking's biggest supporters decided we needed guardrails.

The Senate passed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. The bill created Senate standing rule 44, which requires the authors of any bill considered by the Chamber to do this: identify each earmark contained in the bill and ensure that the text is publicly available at least 48 hours prior to proceeding to the bill.

These two protections helped shine light on the earmarking process. There was significant bipartisan support for the protections in rule 44.

In 2007, on the Senate floor, Senator Hillary Clinton said that rule 44 would help curb wasteful spending by creating greater transparency ``in the earmark process.'' It was nearly unanimous, including the two Senators from New Hampshire.

I want to read a portion of her comments.

I believe we can improve accountability by mandating publication of the earmark for a minimum period of time prior to any vote on the underlying measure, ensuring that both other elected officials and the general public have the opportunity to scrutinize the sponsored outlay. Taking these common-sense steps would ensure that legislators are made to answer for the spending they cosponsor.

A quote from Hillary Clinton. I couldn't agree more, in this case. But the drafters of Senate rule 44 left something out. The rule does not apply to legislation brought to the floor as an amendment from the House.

This means that a determined majority can ignore the protections offered under the rule simply by using a common procedural mechanism.

The bill I seek to pass today closes this loophole. Senator Durbin commented about how important it was back then as well.

Congress should abide by the rules it created for itself. We recently saw the consequences of this loophole. The Omnibus appropriations bill considered in March contained nearly 5,000 earmarks, totaling nearly $10 billion. The Senate passed the bill less than 48 hours after receiving the text, in violation of the spirit of rule 44.

As Dr. Tom Coburn used to say in this Chamber, earmarks are a ``gateway drug.'' We must close this unintended loophole before the situation gets worse. In fiscal year 2010, the last year of earmarking before the congressional ban, Congress passed 11,000 earmarks at a sum of $32 billion. We cannot go back there.

Earmarks give Congress a personal incentive to vote for the huge spending bills that are dragging America into bankruptcy. I talked about it last night when I introduced my own budget to try to go the other direction.

Return of earmarks will mean the return of earmark scandals and earmark corruption much sooner than you think. Let's do the minimum to prevent this.

Res. 687; further, that the resolution be agreed to and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table.

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Mr. BRAUN. Mr. President, with all due respect to the Senator from New Hampshire, Senator Shaheen, back in 2007, both New Hampshire Senators Gregg and Sununu as well as all 98 Senators who voted back then I think intended not only for the letter of the law but they wanted the spirit of the law to be aligned with it.

We now have a new way, something that can come over here that violates a standing rule of the Senate. I am guessing it will probably be used again down the road where we have to get something, we have no time to look at it. I think the spirit of the law would say that we need the 48 hours and the ability to know who is on it and who isn't.

And then in the bigger picture, I would ask this question--and the American public ought to listen, ask it themselves--is this place getting more responsible or are we giving better value to you? Do we budget? Do we use regular order? And most importantly, are we creating more and more deficit and more and more debt?

We know what the answer is. I talked about it for 15 minutes yesterday evening. We are doing everything we can to avoid the rules, pay attention to the spirit of the law. And in what we are delivering, it is a product I think that shows less and less responsibility out of a body that should not be making rules that make it easier to run deficits and go into debt. It ought to be the opposite.

And if we don't, I think future generations will hold us accountable for the things that we seem to do best, which are the gimmicks to get around budgeting, avoiding the rules on a technicality.

The American public deserves better.

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