Boehner, Cantor vow vote to ban earmarks next Congress

The top two House Republican leaders said on Friday that they will hold a vote to ban all earmarks for the 112th Congress.

Presumptive Speaker Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) and presumptive House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) announced that their GOP conference would vote next week to ban all earmarks.

"Next week the House Republican Conference, including all of our newly elected Members, will vote on a measure that would impose an immediate ban on earmarks at the start of the 112th Congress," the leaders said in a joint statement.

Boehner and Cantor called earmarks "a symbol of a dysfunctional Congress" that "serve as a fuel line for the culture of spending that has dominated Washington for too long."

The statement was a prebuttal to the president's weekly address to the nation to be released on Saturday.

In it, Obama discusses the issue of earmark reform. The address is embargoed for release until Saturday morning.

Boehner and Cantor called on the president to veto bills that go to his desk with earmark spending.

"If the President is committed to real earmark reform, he could demonstrate that immediately by agreeing to veto any spending measure this year or next that includes earmarks. Washington has failed to prioritize the way that taxpayer dollars are spent, and shutting down the earmark process is a good first step to begin righting the ship," they stated after "urging" him to direct House Democrats to hold a vote on a similar ban of earmarks.