CRS Report: 95% of Earmarks Not Legally Binding
CRS Report: 95% of Earmarks Not Legally Binding
Administration has authority to ignore wasteful spending
Tday, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) released a report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) that details the abuse of non-legislated earmarks. CRS found that in the Fiscal Year 2006 appropriations bills, over 95% of all earmarks were slipped into committee and managers reports and not written into law.
"This report makes the true problem of earmarks crystal clear," said Senator DeMint. "The vast majority of earmarks are secretly slipped into bills without much debate. These non-legislated earmarks are not legally binding, and the Administration has the authority to stop them. President Bush should instruct his cabinet to ignore wasteful non-legislative earmarks and reserve the funds for their core missions. This would make it much harder for Congress to add wasteful earmarks and spend more than is truly needed."
The CRS report lists the number of earmarks in each of last year's appropriations bills and how many of those earmarks were actually legislated in the text of the bill. When added together, there were a total of 12,852 earmarks in last year's appropriations with a value of over $67 billion, only 543 of which were actually in bill text. The remaining 12,309 earmarks were not in the text of a bill; instead they were added to committee and managers reports with no debate. As the report states, "Earmarks that appear in committee reports and the statements of managers do not legally bind agencies "
Earmarks often prevent agencies from carrying out their core missions. For example, during a hearing last month of the Senate Commerce, Science & Transportation Committee, a National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) official testified that the growth of earmarks has threatened the agency's basic functions. "It's a very hard budget to execute because of the twenty-six hundred line items, and when there are a number of issues of which we are trying to work on this year that are locked in to these line items, it makes it very hard to keep the current services going at the levels I know you all expect," NOAA Administrator Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher.
http://demint.senate.gov/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Detail&PressRelease_id=351&Month=3&Year=2006&Type=PressRelease