[jeffkrol]

ppropriations bills – Commerce-Justice-State, Labor-HHS-Education, Transportation, and VAHousing
and Urban Development – contained roughly 764 earmarks. By 2005, under Republican
control, that number exploded to 8,600 earmarks – an increase of more than 1,000 percent. In
1994, the Labor-H bill contained ZERO earmarks. By 2005, under Republican management, it
alone carried 3,054, and we were treated to stories about Mr. Cunningham, Mr. Ney, Mr.
Abramoff, and several others abusing the process.
“But in his op-ed, Mr. Duffy asserted several reasons for banning earmarks which demonstrate
that he has a far from complete understanding of what the track record of the two parties have
been on earmark reform.
“First, he says that Members shouldn’t be able to sneak earmarks into legislation. If it’s sneaking
he’s opposed to, he must be thinking of the way the Republican majority used earmarks. They
routinely dropped earmarks into bills late in the game with no notice and no disclosure;
sometimes even after votes had been taken. In contrast, the Democratic Congress instituted
several major earmark reforms, including a ban that specifically prevented sneaking earmarks
into bills.
“Second, he asserts that earmarks are used to “buy votes” for legislation. Again, he must be
talking about how earmarks were handled when Republicans ran this place. In 2004, the
Republican leadership eliminated every earmark in the Labor-H appropriations bill for
Democrats who voted against it. That’s why, when we took control, we outlawed that type of
log-rolling and made it against the rules for earmarks to be conditioned on any vote cast by a
Member.
“Third, he argues that we put billions of dollars into bills without any semblance of
accountability. Again, he must be thinking of how Republicans handled earmarks when they ran
this place. With our reforms, we cut earmarks in half and specifically required Members to take
responsibility for every earmark they request – not just those that make it into legislation; a level
of transparency and accountability that was unimaginable under Republican control.
“Again, if Republicans want to oppose earmarks, that is their prerogative

http://media.journalinteractive.com/documents/Obey.pdf
Outgoing appropriations chair Dave Obey responds to Sean Duffy and the GOP on earmarks - JSOnline
sigh... the lunatics are now running the nuthouse I'm afraid........