Quote:
Originally Posted by BugsyPal
Earmarks are (or were) universally used and loved by both sides of the House aisle; thus if there was any real love for bringing the thing back it would have happened long time ago.
Since their ban in the House (2010) there have been several attempts to bring earmarks back to the House, none have gained any traction. Some want earmarks back to help Congress pass bills
Even *if* the House did succeed in lifting its own ban on earmarks the Senate remains under a self imposed same (to ward off it happing via legislation I shouldn't wonder). Thus anything that came out of the House filled with earmarks could be stripped out by the Senate and or via a forced reconciliation process.
Seeing how His Orangeness and the Republicans ran on a platform of reducing government spending, don't see how returning earmarks can be see as anything but backsliding.
|
I know this is from the NY Times, and that is probably a bad thing, but it does do a good job of explaining how earmarks never went away when they were banned, therefore I could see them coming back quietly with the Republicans controlling Congress and the president so they can go back to the era of passing pork in an easier fashion. Though the current way of passing pork is much less transparent, so who knows, maybe Congress has gotten use to this new way and prefer it to just having earmarks.
Congress Appears to Be Trying to Get Around Earmark Ban - The New York Times
I also don't think we will see a reduction of government spending, we will probably see a reduction in programs that help the majority of Americans. But again, we will just have to wait and see what the Republicans have in store for this nation, but I am betting the bottleneck will be coming to an end at the end of January.