Earmarks: "Congress Should Debate Them In The Open And Hold A Public Vote"

Over at Human Events, Newt Gingrich has a great roundup of the recent efforts to regain control over earmarks. Earmarks, you may recall, are dollars that are targeted to pet programs; and the pets often look a lot like Jabba the Hutt -- bloated, all-consuming, and either irrelevant or nasty.

Among other great developments, there's an executive order that prohibits the feds from taking their cues from explanatory reports and other ancillary material -- if a spending guideline isn't in the law as written, it doesn't count.

For appropriations laws and other legislation enacted after the date of this order, executive agencies should not commit, obligate, or expend funds on the basis of earmarks included in any non-statutory source, including requests in reports of committees of the Congress or other congressional documents, or communications from or on behalf of Members of Congress, or any other non-statutory source, except when required by law or when an agency has itself determined a project, program, activity, grant, or other transaction to have merit under statutory criteria or other merit-based decisionmaking.

How often does a sentence that dry sound that good? :)

Also, the President has committed to vetoing any appropriations bill that doesn't cut the number and cost of earmarks by half.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (Ohio) and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) are both fighting the good fight here -- McConnell, in fact, has just appointed a Republican task force chaired by Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) to address earmark reform. Look for ways to support these men in their struggles against a bloated and domineering federal government.

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