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<-Mohammed
- Aug 4, 2009
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Sounds pretty good to me! One big step toward doing away with earmarks.
House Leaders Bar Earmarks to For-Profit Companies - NYTimes.com
House Leaders Bar Earmarks to For-Profit Companies - NYTimes.com
WASHINGTON House Democratic leaders said on Wednesday that they would no longer dole out budget earmarks to profit-making companies, wiping out one of the most lucrative and controversial means of awarding no-bid contracts to private firms.
The ban is the most aggressive step yet in a three-year effort in Congress to curb abuses in the awarding of earmarks, which direct that federal money be spent in a very specific way. The move follows criminal investigations, ethics inquiries and political embarassment linked to the use of earmarks.
If the ban had been in effect last year, it would have blocked some 1,000 earmarks, many of them for military contractors that received multi-million-dollar contracts, leaders of the House Appropriations Committee said in announcing the decision.
The move came less than two weeks after the House ethics committee cleared seven members of a defense appropriations subcommittee of allegations growing out of their awarding of earmarks to political contributors.
The earlier decision to clear the lawmakers drew sharp criticism from government watchdog groups, who said it would open the door to further abuse. The ban announced Wednesday appeared to be an effort by House Democrats to regain the high ground after a series of allegations against their own members. Republican leaders are considering how and whether to follow suit.
Since retaking control of Congress in 2007, the Democrats have taken a series of steps, including disclosing publicly which lawmakers requested each earmark, in an attempt to eliminate abuses. While outside critics of the earmark process have dismissed some of those steps as cosmetic, the ban on earmarks for profit-making companies announced on Wednesday drew quick praise.