Americans for Prosperity Condemns Senate Vote to Reject Earmark Moratorium
Late night vote symbolic of sneaky, corrupt earmarking
 
WASHINGTON, DC – Americans for Prosperity President Tim Phillips issued the following statement today on the heels of a late-night vote by the U.S. Senate to reject a year-long moratorium on pork-barrel earmarks:
 
“Literally under the cover of darkness, 71 senators chose unaccountable pork-barrel earmarks over restoring trust with taxpayers. The scheduling of this vote for the dead of night is symbolic of lawmakers’ refusal to clean up corrupt and sneaky earmarking with real reform.
 
“Ironically, much of the blame for this vote falls on much of the Democratic and Republican leadership ,  who by refusing to throw their support behind this amendment ,  failed to live up to their leadership roles. They missed a huge opportunity to restore taxpayers’ trust.
 
“Senator DeMint, as well as the 15 senators who co-sponsored this bipartisan legislation, deserve credit for their leadership on earmark reform. These lawmakers correctly recognize that the only way to reform this broken system and refocus our national spending priorities is to temporarily ban earmarks.
 
“Both parties have become far too beholden to pork-barrel earmarks and have violated taxpayers’ trust by funding projects with little or no value or using earmarks to curry favor with campaign contributors. We have a system of checks and balances and debate for a reason. Single-handed decisions about what pet projects deserve federal dollars is fertile ground in which nepotism, cronyism, corruption, and plain old bad judgment can grow.
 
“Americans for Prosperity traveled the country on the Ending Earmarks Express road tour – trekking over 10,000 miles to the sites of 50 egregious earmarks – and found that citizens want lawmakers to quit flexing their political muscles with pork-barrel earmarks. In 2007 we brought over 1,600 citizens to the Defending the American Dream Summit in Washington, DC, who felt so strongly about this issue that they traveled hundreds and even thousands of miles, to say, ‘Enough is enough.’ Unfortunately, it appears some lawmakers haven’t received the whole message.”