Sou-eee! Sou-eee! Sou-eee!
Posted at 10:05pm on Jan. 2, 2008 Stop paying attention to the Iowa Caucus thing for a second, if you would?
Yes, knife-play is *fun*, but something more important's come up.
By Moe Lane
Captain's Quarters has its eyes on the prize:
Sources on the Hill tell some of us that a critical point has been reached at the White House on whether to issue an Executive Order that would prevent federal agencies from spending funds on 90% of the earmarks in the Omnibus Spending Bill. According to the whispers, the earmarkers on Capitol Hill have begun to lean heavily on the White House to let the matter drop and to keep the earmark funding in place. Every day brings a fresh round of calls from the same lawmakers who porked up the overdue spending bill, "airdropping" almost all of them (against the new rules in Congress) to keep the porkers from accountability.
Ed goes on to note that we need to keep on top of this if we expect the White House to issue this Order. So, send a cheerful, polite email tonight to comments@whitehouse.gov discussing why you want this to happen; and call them tomorrow at 202-456-1111 to follow through. Shoot, you can even do both if you're a Democrat: you guys are supposed to be against waste, too these days, right?
Posted in Congress | Earmarks | Sou-eee! Sou-eee! Sou-eee! | Stop Spending my Money — Comments (30)/ Email this page » / Read More »
Posted at 10:25am on Dec. 28, 2007 Executive Order their pork-laden [expletive deleted], Mr. President.
Right between their eyes.
By Moe Lane
Hey, I'm not the only one who thinks that. The IBD stopped just short of calling for Senator Byrd to wake up tomorrow with a horse's head in his bed:
Stick It In Their Earmarks
INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY(snip)
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle slipped into the [appropriations] bill close to 10,000 of the so-called earmarks (provisions to spend budget authorizations on pet projects, typically in the earmark author's home state or district). They totaled more than $10 billion.
(snip)
The Congressional Research Service issued a report last week confirming that earmarks not included in the actual bill but written into accompanying reports — which is most of them — do not have force of law and can therefore be disregarded by the president.
(snip)
If the president decided to get tough and issue an executive order instructing all agencies not to be guided by earmarks not actually included in the appropriations legislation, he would have on his side the Presentment Clause in Article 1 of the Constitution, which describes how a bill becomes law.
(Via Captain Ed)
Read on.
Posted in 2008 | Right down the middle | Sou-eee! Sou-eee! Sou-eee! — Comments (24)/ Email this page » / Read More »
