Reform Earmarks

Op-Ed

Straight Talk With Sam

Reform Earmarks

In Missouri, all of our bridges lead to somewhere. A bridge to nowhere wouldn't seem to make much sense. Yet, that is exactly what taxpayers got in the last federal transportation bill. A member of the Alaska delegation secured funding for a bridge that connected a town to an island with an airport and a population of 50.

Earmarking is the Washington term for specifying which project money is spent on. The original idea was that lawmakers know their districts better than federal bureaucrats and should have some say in where that money is spent. What has happened is that projects are slipped in at the last minute without any public scrutiny. However good the original intention, it is now out of control.

We need to bring fiscal sanity back to Washington D.C. and stop funding bridges to nowhere, hippy museums in New York and rainforests in Iowa. I have signed onto a proposal that would allow an up or down vote on every earmark on the House floor. If it is worthy of getting a dime of taxpayer money then you should be able to defend it to your colleagues.

Almost 200 Republicans have signed onto the proposal, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi has refused to bring it up for a vote. That's too bad because spending taxpayer money wisely should be a bi-partisan issue.

The good news is that Congress did come to its senses and eliminate the funding for that bridge to nowhere. An up or down vote on each earmark would bring some sanity back to Washington.

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