Bill Allison at Sunlight Foundation drew our attention to the unprecedented news that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) today has started posting a list of all earmarks in appropriations bills. This is fantastic news for the public, the news media, and government watchdogs. OMB uploaded earmarks on to the FY 2005 appropriations bills. Unfortunately, the database does not identify the sponsors of the earmarks.
As our wise colleague Win Wheeler points out, it appears that earmarks were snuck into one of the first appropriations bills out of the gate, the emergency supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan which was passed in the House and the Senate and is now headed for conference. According to Win, language on the bill claims that there are no earmarks on it despite $60 million for salmon fisheries and $25 million for spinach farmers. The Congress put roughly $20 billion in additional spending on the supplemental, but claims in that bill that it: “contains no congressional earmarks.” It does appear that this language stretches the boundaries of reality.
It's interesting to note that OMB’s impetus for posting the earmarks is a January 2007 promise to cut the number and cost of earmarks in half. Ironically, Bush’s promise may be fulfilled if the Democrats continue down the road of simply lying about the fact that there are no earmarks.
-- Beth Daley
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