House Republicans Adopt Earmarks Ban in New Congress

House Republican leader John Boehner.

/ AP

House Republicans today adopted a ban on earmarks in the 112th Congress, continuing the earmarks ban they already have in place.

"This earmark ban shows the American people we are listening and we are dead serious about ending business as usual in Washington," House Republican Leader John Boehner said in a statement.

Senate Republicans - driven by Tea Party-backed lawmakers - adopted an earmarks ban on Tuesday, despite concerns from Republican leader Mitch McConnell and some other Republicans that in doing so they are ceding spending authority to the executive branch.

Earmarks account for less than one half of one percent of the federal budget, and their elimination would have a relatively insignificant effect on the budget deficit. (They still generally make up about $15 billion of the budget each year.) But they have become a symbol for many Americans of wasteful government spending, and Republicans are eager to show their supporters they are serious about fiscal discipline.

In March of this year, House Republicans adopted a year-long earmarks ban, but that did not stop three members from requesting earmarks anyway. House Democrats last year adopted a moratorium on earmarks directed to for-profit companies.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said he will allow a vote on an earmarks ban by the full Senate. Only two Democrats have come out in favor of such a ban.

Earmarks are requests by individual lawmakers for funds to be directed to their districts for projects or companies. Earmarking allows lawmakers to get around the bidding process that goes through the executive branch.

President Obama has said in the past that he opposes wasteful earmark spending but that he believes some earmarks can be useful; he put out a statement earlier this week that did not make his position on the issue entirely clear. Pressed for clarification by CBS News, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the president supports a permanent ban on all congressional earmarks.

In his statement on the House GOP's earmarks ban, Boehner said, "We hope President Obama will follow through on his support for an earmark ban by pressing Democratic leaders to join House and Senate Republicans in taking this critical step to restore public trust."

Some argue an earmarks ban could hamper partisan cooperation because they can be used as tools to win votes.

"If earmarks are used to generate compromise, than you're taking away another tool for lawmakers to use to prevent gridlock," George Mason University economics professor Thomas Stratmann said. "Someone has to give, and to the extent that earmarks grease the wheel, they are beneficial."

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Brian Montopoli is senor political reporter for CBSNews.com. You can read more of his posts here. Follow Hotsheet on Facebook and Twitter.

[34sender]

Republicans call a meeting:

Quick can we find a new word or phrase for "earmark"... something like "tyranny killing district enhancement". First one with a winner gets to use the speaker-jet, Boehner (and his many security guards) are going to fly commercial, so it's just waiting for a party. Nobody will know....

[slatep]

Hey, $15 billion dollars is still $15 billion dollars.!

[34sender]

Exactly variablespanner.

Cutting Earmarks does not cut the budget, it's a smoke and mirrors move to satisfy the tragically uninformed base the Republicans continue to use and (if they only had eyes to see) ... abuse for the good of their real constituents, the corporations and big money folk.

[34sender]

The agreement is non-binding. This means it is "for show" like most everything else Republicans have done "for middle and lower income Americans".

[thanksgreed]

How 'bout doing something MEANINGFUL?

[tonyatq]

I sure the teabaggers will be glad to hear they are stop the earmarks. Now how much will it cut the deflicts? Not one cent.

[chonder2]

The Repubs have lied again!!They have the majority in the house now and we STILL have not recovered 12 million jobs.They are doing NOTHING!!

[royalstar05]

This does absolutely nothing. More backroom deals to move the money around is what this is about. They think that they are doing what the people want and think they are making things better, but actually this is the worst thing they can do.

[oldarkie]

Perhaps they think we think they think they are doing what the people want. As usual, they say what they think we want to hear then do what they please, which is absolutely nothing unless it is self serving.

[RealiteBites]

"In March of this year, House Republicans adopted a year-long earmarks ban, but that did not stop three members from requesting earmarks anyway."
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I guess Mitch McConnell insisted it only be 2 years, so he could resume earmarking again before his re-election in 2014?

We all keep blaming the politicians for going back to business as usual, but apparently voters have mixed feelings themselves, don't we? Because the polls show that people don't like earmarks, but when the people who do the most earmarking come up for re-election, people seem to go for the person who's brought home the bacon. Isn't that what the analysts are saying might have tilted the races in favor of McConnell and Reid?

And then, don't the polls also show that most people favor term limits for Congress? But yet, voters keep voting for many of the same people who are using their seniority to earmark to get re-elected.

What a dysfunctional system - ideally, I think most voters would love to see Dems come over top the Repubs and vow to lay off the earmarks for 6 years (and actually follow through), so they could call the Repubs like McConnell out for basically just making a symbolic gesture that doesn't really strike to the heart of the dysfunction. But the Dems are even worse about the whole practice ... I guess they keep doing it because it works ...

[RealiteBites]

You know who didn't earmark - Russ Feingold.

[RealiteBites]

And so, I guess Sen. McConnell's been earmarking to the tune of about $500,000,000 a year? And Kentucky's got a population of just under 5mil. So that's like $600 a person of the nation's money's worth of advantage that he brings to the table that few challengers could likely match.

Meg Whitman *only* spent $140 per person of her own money trying to become Senator, didn't she?

[realist51]

this could be a dangerous tool to be used by either party. now with this in place to make what otherwise might of been a good bill somebody requests an earmark and attachs it to the bill. now everybody votes it down because it has a earmark or earmarks on it.and it doesn't really matter who requested it. the bill gets voted down or your party faces the reprocussions of having voted a bill in with earmarks? what needed to really happen here is that bills should be voted on there own merit and not party lines the same with earmarks. if a college or school needs to be remodeled and bought up to date great. what we don't need is money spent on a watefall in a mall somewhere. the law makers should have enough common sense to look at them and decide weather its somthing that would be good for the maney or the few or the one. no business's should receive any kind of funding at all the freemarket needs to work its own if x-mart needs a road or rail put in they pay for it.

[GunsInTheSky]

One problem. This does not reduce spending AT ALL.

Now instead of Congress saying how the money is spent, the executive department the money is allocated to via the budget will have all the say.

BIG WHOOP!

Congress can still lobby these department to spend money on their pet projects.

Jokes on the american public...once again.