House of Ill-Repute
Dems are on the way to retaking the House, but what will they actually inherit? Recent polls show just one in four Americans thinks Congress is doing a good job. That’s not surprising considering the stench of corruption that emanates from the legislative body, especially the House.
The surprising thing to me is the Republicans aren’t taking the public’s “kick the rascals out” mood more seriously. You’d think after after the Jack Abramoff scandal had spread to Tom DeLay and Ohio Republican Bob Ney, and after former California Rep Duke Cunningham pleaded guilty to bribery –- that after all that Speaker Hastert and his leadership team would have recognized the need for something more dramatic than the whimpy nothing of a bill the House passed last spring. It barely touched earmarks and didn’t even ban gifts and meals from lobbyists. The bill isn’t going anywhere anyway; it’s still lingering in House-Senate limbo land.
The idea that the American public doesn’t care about corruption is itself testament to the fundamental corruption there. The number of registered lobbyists in Washington has ballooned to the point there are over 60 of them for every single member of Congress. They spent two point four billion dollars last year. What do you think the lobbyists bought with that money?
A lot of it was for earmarks, obviously. Ten years ago there were about 3,000 earmarks. Last year there were over 14,000, costing taxpayers over $47 billion, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The latest idea emanating from the House leadership is to require by House rules that legislation containing earmarks list members of Congress who sponsored them.
That’s not reform. That’s advertising. There’s no mystery about who sponsors what earmark. Just look at who’s district the earmarked money will go to.
Meanwhile, several of the appropriations bills now awaiting final markup are chocked-full of earmarks. Take a look at Labor-HHS if you want to feel sick to your stomach.
The only meaningful reform is to ban all earmarks, period. They’re taxpayer ripoffs. They amount to bribery. And if this Congress won’t clean up its act, the public will clean up Congress and throw the rascals out. If the Dems don’t stop it on their watch, the public will throw them out, too.