WASHINGTON, D.C. – In his ongoing battle to protect taxpayers from wasteful government spending, U.S. Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) today led the Senate Republican Conference to extend its ban on earmarks, which was scheduled to expire at the end of this Congress. Toomey applauded his colleagues’ vote to extend the current earmark moratorium for another Congress.

“The American people are tired of wasteful government spending and special interest handouts,” Sen. Toomey said.  “Taxpayers don’t want to pay for bridges to nowhere, studies on maple syrup, or the Cowboy poetry festival.  My Conference rule, which was adopted today, says that the Republicans will not request earmarks.  I am pleased that even before the new Congress begins, the Republican majority is working to protect taxpayers and make government more effective and efficient. This is an improvement but we have to keep working toward a permanent ban.”

Past experience shows that the prevalence of earmarks can grow exponentially when left unchecked. According to the watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste, in 1998 Congress approved about 2,100 earmark projects at a total cost of $13.2 billion.  By 2006 — the height of the earmark binge — these numbers ballooned to nearly 10,000 earmarks that cost taxpayers about $29 billion.  Over the years, earmarks were used to fund such dubious projects as the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere” in Alaska, an indoor rainforest, and a teapot museum.

The language of Sen. Toomey’s Conference rule is below:

“Resolved, that it is the policy of the Republican Conference that no Member shall request a congressionally directed spending item, limited tax benefit, or limited tariff benefit, as such items are used in Rule XLIV of the Standing Rules of the Senate for the 114^th Congress.”

 

Earlier this Congress, Sen. Toomey introduced the bipartisan Earmark Elimination Act with Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.). Their legislation would expand the temporary moratorium on earmarks to permanently ban earmarks from the legislative process.

The Toomey/McCaskill legislation would:

• Permanently ban all earmarks. • Define earmarks as any congressionally directed spending item, limited tax benefit, or limited tariff benefit. • Create a point of order against any legislation containing an earmark. The point of order would only apply to the actual earmark, rather than to the entire bill. • Require a two-thirds vote to waive the point of order.

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Dec. 10, 2014 

Contact: E.R. Anderson (202) 224-8609