The Republican Party is never going to be able to make the credible case that we are the party of fiscal conservatism and government frugality if we are constantly dining heavily on a diet of Congressional earmarks. Remember, in the court of public opinion, perception is very important. Thanks to vast number of outrageous and egregious pork-barrel earmarks, the entire earmarking 
process is being viewed by the public, and certainly by Republican donors and activists as being corrupt. Earmarks that are awarded based on back-slapping and horse-trading, rather than through the creation of objective, definable and provable criteria are egregious, and should be stopped.
[How did your California Representative vote on fifty different opportunities to eliminate extremely egregious earmarks to appropriations bills this session? Here is our report on the Club for Growth’s RePORK Card…]
The San Francisco Chronicle, on of the country’s major newspapers, yesterday ran a lengthy story on earmarking and how the top Congressional leaders are bringing home the most pork. The article starts out talking about Speaker Pelosi, but part way through the story, we get to the part that irks me. Republicans feeding at the trough.
I have said over and over again that those Republican Members of Congress that are championing the pork-barrel process, are voting out all of the egregious earmarks, and who somehow think that because a project is in a district, that means it should be funded with no ability to demonstrate objective criteria for merit (hence the phrase "pork" or "lard" being applied here), these members are making it hard for us to make the case for fiscal conservatism for the Party of Lincoln. I believe that Republican voters’ perception of our majority last year as being ‘big spenders’ played a role in shifting of control to the Democrats.
Here is the excerpt from the piece that causes angst:
Rep. Jerry Lewis of Redlands (San Bernardino County), the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, pulled in more than Pelosi – $124 million. Florida Rep. C.W. "Bill" Young, the top Republican on the Defense Appropriations panel, received $142 million. He and Murtha, who control the biggest pot of money, apply an unwritten rule: The majority party gets 60 percent of the earmarks, the minority party gets 40 percent.
Look, I would say that there are non-egregious earmarks out there, but under the current system, no one I know believes there is a process in place to determine which is which. And if the ranking Republicans in the spending process are more obsessed with getting their pork than they are with making sure that all earmarks are appropriate expenditures of federal money, these foxes should no longer be guarding the henhouse. Period.
You can read the whole story here.
Our FlashReport Beltway Correspondent, Congressman John Campbell (who scored a perfect 100% on the CfG RePORK Card) lays out a ten point plan for eamark reform…
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