The Senate Appropriations Committee will issue further guidelines next week on members’ earmark requests. But it remains unclear whether the final number will represent a sharp decrease or how appropriators will tweak the legislative language. Simply making a request does not necessarily mean the earmark will make it into spending bills.
“At the present time, no decisions on any issues about earmarks have been made,” said Jesse Jacobs, spokesman for Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), head of the panel.
Part of the problem for determining how to respond to Bush’s request is that it’s not clear what baseline the White House will use to determine whether earmarks have been cut in half. Nor did the White House clarify what it would consider sufficient as far as explaining projects in legislative text, Appropriations aides say.
Since Bush made the announcement, Democratic leaders have slammed the president for ignoring the issue when Republicans controlled Congress — and for finding a newfound sense of fiscal responsibility even though his recent budget projects a deficit swelling to $410 billion.
Even if Congress and Bush remain at loggerheads over earmarks, leading to a protracted budget fight resembling last year’s battle, Democrats have a plan: wait for Bush to leave office and hope a Democrat wins the White House.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said this week that if that situation occurs, Congress may pass a stop-gap resolution that keeps the government funded at last year’s levels and wait for either Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) or Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to move into the White House.
Reid said this week that Democrats “will not be held hostage” to the president’s budget request. But Democrats could lose that leverage if the likely GOP nominee, earmark foe Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), wins in November.
House and Senate Republicans already say they are taking steps to curb the practice. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), an appropriator who regularly secures earmarks, created a five-member commission to report to the Republican Conference by March 15 to report on ways to fix the process.
“The legislative process is deliberative around here, and I imagine we have at least until March 15 to make some suggestions,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), an appropriator and the third-ranking Senate Republican.
House Republicans have called on Democrats to join them on an immediate moratorium on earmarks, but Democrats have rejected the request, saying the GOP only made the request knowing full well the majority would not go along.
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