Providing for Earmarking Reform in the House of Representatives
PROVIDING FOR EARMARKING REFORM IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES -- (House of Representatives - September 14, 2006)
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, after all the scandals, after all the corruption, after all the unethical abuse of earmarks, after all the public outrage, this is it? This is the best that you can do? With all due respect to my colleague from Arizona, who just spoke, I don't want your compliments. I don't want to take credit for this.
This measure before us is not earmark reform or any other kind of real reform. It is not accountability, and it is not transparency. It is, at best, a press release. There are so many loopholes in this measure that you could drive a Mack truck right through it. Unreported bills, manager's amendments and other amendments are not subject to this so-called reform.
That is where a great deal of the earmarking abuse occurs, but it is all exempt. We need to clean this place up. We need to change the culture of corruption in this House of Representatives. We need a comprehensive lobbying bill that has teeth in it, that means something.
Let me say to my colleagues, this entire institution has suffered as a result of the corrupt practices of the Tom DeLays and the Duke Cunninghams. It has suffered under the 12 years of mismanagement by the Republican majority here. People have had it. People have lost faith in this institution.
This chairman of the Rules Committee talks about how the Republican majority is interested in reining in spending. Federal spending has gone up 40 percent since George Bush took office. In terms of earmarks, they are coming late to this game. In 1995, when they took power, there were about 1,400 earmarks. There are over 14,000 earmarks as of 2005.
You know, the only way to regain the confidence of the American people is by combating the corruption, by cleaning up this institution, by implementing real, honest-to-goodness reform.
This is not it. If you are going to do something, do it right.
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