Republicans Indulging in Pork Along With Power
By Nick Anderson
Times Staff Writer
December 8, 2003
WASHINGTON ? Before they took control of Congress nearly nine years ago, Republicans often mocked the Democratic practice of larding government spending bills with provisions that earmarked funds for pet projects in particular lawmakers' districts and states.
But a $328.1-billion bill that the Republican-led House expects to pass today, funding a grab bag of government agencies, takes earmarking to greater heights and uses it for what Democrats claim are new, partisan purposes.
The bill includes an eye-popping number of earmarks ? around 7,000 by one estimate, at a cost of several billion dollars. Other spending bills bring the grand total for the year to more than 10,000. In that long list are items big and small, from $100,000 for street furniture and sidewalks in Laverne, Ala., to $44 million for a bridge to Treasure Island in Florida ? a plum for the Tampa Bay district of House Appropriations Chairman C.W. "Bill" Young.
But more than that, to a degree unseen since their 1995 takeover, the majority Republicans are publicly flaunting their power to use pork for explicitly partisan purposes.
Traditionally, the dominant party oils the legislative machinery by setting aside a healthy fraction of earmarked funds for the minority. This year, in a key section of the spending bill, the Republicans got stingy.
They were irate when House Democrats voted en masse in July against their version of the annual spending bill for the Labor, Education and Health and Human Services departments. As punishment, in the labor, health and education provisions of the pending bill, they are denying Democrats the customary minority share of what are euphemistically known on Capitol Hill as "member projects."
