Mar 13 2008
U.S. Senate to Vote on DeMint Earmark Moratorium
Sen. Jim DeMint’s anti-earmarks bandwagon is getting mighty crowded these days.
The Senate is expected to vote today on DeMint’s measure to impose a one-year moratorium on funding earmarks that direct federal spending for lawmakers’ projects to cities, counties and states around the nation.
The moratorium gained momentum this week when Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, joined other cosponsors of the DeMint measure.
“What it tells you is that as they get around the country, they’re hearing from people that spending is out of control, earmarks are symbolic of spending and corruption and they don’t want to be on the wrong side of the issue,” DeMint said Wednesday in an interview.
DeMint deserves a lot of credit for pushing this and not backing down. Earmarks need to go for a number of reasons, waste and corruption being the two most important in my opinion. However, even if this passes it will not save us any tax dollars. Instead of that money going to earmarks the Senate will alternatively inflate some other wasteful social program using that money rather than doing the responsible thing which would be allocation as an additional payment on the national debt.
