Rep. Gillmor: "What Happens in Washington, Stays in Washington???"

Via email:

You have probably heard the slogan; what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas. This week there is a move afoot in the Capitol Building for a slogan of our own; what happens in Washington, stays in Washington.

Every year, the House starts the annual process of directing money to pay for all of the priorities of the federal government- from funding the War on Terror to providing for Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid. The money is allocated through twelve bills which must be passed by both the House and Senate. It is the process by which these twelve bills are designed which is creating such a conflict in the House this week.

The debate has been whether earmarks requested by Members of Congress should receive a full and open public debate, which I believe they should, or whether they should be dropped in at the last minute, with little time for scrutiny.

In past years, as the House Appropriations Committee considered the twelve individual bills and brought them up for a vote in the House, you would have found a public record of the funding requests of Members of Congress. Examples of appropriate earmarks include the $24 million I have brought back for two dozen worthy projects in northwest Ohio such as wastewater improvements and life saving road loops. Many of these projects had been overlooked or under funded by the state and federal government and they were all very worthy of public funding.

Unfortunately, this year, Democrats in the House, led by David Obey the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, announced that earmarks would not be a part of the public appropriations bills being considered right now. Instead, the projects would be air dropped into the twelve conference committee bills later this year with no opportunity to be amended by either the House or Senate. This backroom deal would leave virtually no time for oversight and much more opportunity for abuse. In fact, only Congressman Obey and his staff would have the final say as to what projects were funded, creating in essence an "earmark czar".

After a public outcry and a united response by House Republicans, Democrats were forced to capitulate and end this plan of secretly funding earmarks. I am not going to blame the entire Democrat Party for the decisions of its leaders but in the people's House, public scrutiny should be the cornerstone of our debates. We deserve an opportunity to know which projects being funded are proper and necessary and which projects are abuses of both authority and influence.