Getting Tossed Out on Their Ear(marks)

Someone needs to remind the Republicans that when you’re in charge, you get held responsible for the boneheads in Congress as well as the good guys.

WASHINGTON – A Senate staffer — who shall remain nameless here — must have awakened on the wrong side of the bed Monday morning. Said staffer exploded in response to a constituent’s question whether the staffer’s boss was the senator who placed an anonymous hold on S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act.

The constituent was acting in response to a suggestion from Porkbusters.org, which for several days has been encouraging readers to contact their senators and ask if they are behind the anonymous hold that has stopped FFATA, which would make most federal spending public via an Internet database. Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Barack Obama, D-Ill., are the ideologically unlikely main backers of FFATA, which is also supported by this newspaper and more than 100 citizen groups that span the political spectrum.

The Porkbusters effort to identify the anonymous holding senator is unfair, claimed the offended staffer, because it represents a “guilty until proven innocent approach.” That curmudgeonly observation elicited this rather charitable response from Instapundit.com’s Glenn Reynolds: “It’s the Senate’s effort to avoid transparency and accountability that’s at the root of the problem here. Senators conducting Senate business aren’t like individuals going about their private lives. They are public officials, who work for the public, who are doing the public’s business, not their own. The Senate’s tendency to forget that, and to wallow in its own sense of entitlement, is what’s wrong here. Complaints like this one just underscore that.”

Reynolds (who we can safely call Head Porkbuster right now) is exactly right. Congress has gotten to the point where have put themselves in a contradictory position. When it comes to, say, national security matters which Constitutionally fall to the President, they’re all in favor of nosing themselves in, demanding “accountability”, setting themselves up to be the folks who can deliver that, and telling all of us that we should insist that they be in charge. On the other hand, when it comes to our money, and how it’s spent, there’s a general sense of indignation that we, the humble peons have no idea how our money should be spent coupled with an aggorant snort when we suggest that they should open their books and demonstrate some small bit of accountability.

The Republicans, especially Senator Bill Frist, can’t afford to indulge in that sort of two-faced dealing if it hopes to remain in the majority for much longer. Voters are going to listen to their talk and look at their actions and come to the decision that, when it comes to fiscal responsibility, Republicans are big, fat liars. Then, they’ll vote in the Democrats who at least have the advantage of saying right out that they’re going to take more away from you for “the common good”, whatever they decide that good is at any given time.

Frist and his weak-kneed counterpart on the House side, Denny Hastern, need to grow backbones very quickly on this issue. Earmarks, and pork in general, is one of the few issues where they can find overwhelming support for their position. If they don’t move on this now, they’re going to find themselves fighting for the issue from the minority side.

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Category: Political Pontifications