Yonivore
01-18-2007, 11:37 AM
Can't you just see Nancy Pelosi slapping her forehead?
EARMARK ENTERTAINMENT (http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB116857226933574820-lMyQjAxMDE3NjE4MjUxNzIyWj.html)
Democrats are having their own problems cleaning up bad spending habits, and that's after only a few days in power. Yesterday [January 11] on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid was caught pulling out every stop to kill his own party's plan for earmark reform.
...House Democrats recently passed ethics legislation that included provisions making earmarks more transparent. The House bill included a broad definition of earmarks, thereby making it harder to hide them in, say, last-minute conference reports. It also requires Members to file a public disclosure form when they request an earmark, and to state that neither they nor their spouses will financially benefit. It’s hard to argue that this is anything but elementary good government.
Unless you are Harry Reid. The ethics reform offered by Senate Democrats contained none of these tougher earmark provisions. So Senate Republicans, led by South Carolina’s Jim DeMint, cheekily took the identical language of the House earmark bill and offered it as an amendment to the Senate version. Numerous Democrats instantly denounced it, apparently unaware (or unconcerned) that the language had been sponsored by Ms. Pelosi.
Priceless!
Democrat Dick Durbin then moved to table the amendment, though he lost by 51 to 46. Of the 46 Senators who voted to banish Ms. Pelosi’s reform, 38 of them were her fellow Democrats.
Democrats are so eager to oppose anything a Republican might put forth that when a Republican puts forth legislation drafted by Democrats, they oppose it immediately. Not because of the substance, but because of who offered it. And this time they’ve been caught red-handed.
That’s what happens when you’re more focused on gaining and keeping political power than you are about actually doing what’s best for the country.
Democrats! Bi-partisanship is their middle name.
EARMARK ENTERTAINMENT (http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB116857226933574820-lMyQjAxMDE3NjE4MjUxNzIyWj.html)
Democrats are having their own problems cleaning up bad spending habits, and that's after only a few days in power. Yesterday [January 11] on the Senate floor, Majority Leader Harry Reid was caught pulling out every stop to kill his own party's plan for earmark reform.
...House Democrats recently passed ethics legislation that included provisions making earmarks more transparent. The House bill included a broad definition of earmarks, thereby making it harder to hide them in, say, last-minute conference reports. It also requires Members to file a public disclosure form when they request an earmark, and to state that neither they nor their spouses will financially benefit. It’s hard to argue that this is anything but elementary good government.
Unless you are Harry Reid. The ethics reform offered by Senate Democrats contained none of these tougher earmark provisions. So Senate Republicans, led by South Carolina’s Jim DeMint, cheekily took the identical language of the House earmark bill and offered it as an amendment to the Senate version. Numerous Democrats instantly denounced it, apparently unaware (or unconcerned) that the language had been sponsored by Ms. Pelosi.
Priceless!
Democrat Dick Durbin then moved to table the amendment, though he lost by 51 to 46. Of the 46 Senators who voted to banish Ms. Pelosi’s reform, 38 of them were her fellow Democrats.
Democrats are so eager to oppose anything a Republican might put forth that when a Republican puts forth legislation drafted by Democrats, they oppose it immediately. Not because of the substance, but because of who offered it. And this time they’ve been caught red-handed.
That’s what happens when you’re more focused on gaining and keeping political power than you are about actually doing what’s best for the country.
Democrats! Bi-partisanship is their middle name.