Senator Daniel Inouye (D-HI), Chairman of the “Senate Appropriations Committee, released the following statement in response to today’s announcement by the House Appropriations Committee regarding earmarks directed to for-profit entities,” according to a press release.
“I don’t believe this policy or ceding authority to the Executive Branch on any spending decision is in the best interests of the Congress or the American people. In my view, it does not make sense to discriminate against for-profit organizations. I am not sure why we should treat for-profit earmarks any differently than non-profit earmarks.
“All of our for-profit earmarks are already subject to competition. What is the rationale to eliminate them? All earmarks are also subject to the strict transparency rules that were implemented at the beginning of last year, including a single location on the Committee website that links to a list of every Senator’s earmark requests. I would also note that all Senators file statements declaring that they and their immediate families have no financial stake in any earmark request.
“By increasing the transparency and reporting requirements we have erased the impropriety that could have existed when these matters were done in private. If mistakes were made by House members in the past, the new transparency rules eliminate that potential.”
The above was not the full statement, but a key excerpt.
For some background, House Democratic leaders “banned Wednesday the practice of doling out multimillion-dollar, no-bid contracts to private contractors, a move that will shake up the lobbying industry that has come to rely on securing these so-called earmarks for their corporate clients,” according to the Washington Post.
At a meeting of the Democratic caucus, leaders unveiled the new rule that forbids private contractors from receiving earmarks, part of the party’s effort to reclaim the reform mantle that it used successfully in its 2006 midterm campaign to reclaim the majority.
(credit image – hawaiian spring)
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