Jack Kingston: “I want to say this: as a member of the Appropriations Committee, I am proud that this year the House Appropriations…”

“I want to say this: as a member of the Appropriations Committee, I am proud that this year the House Appropriations Committee has eliminated 95 different programs and greatly reduced the number of Member projects and earmarks. In each year we receive about 25,000 requests for earmarks. And yet, if there is another tool out there that we can use to scrutinize spending, I don't think any of us should be afraid to do it. I support the line item veto. I think that the compromise that Mr. Ryan has crafted to get around the questions that we, as a Republican Congress, gave to the Democrat President Clinton administration, I think we should support this for any administration and leave party out of it. It would give the President of the United States a tool, and it would give a self-imposed threat to this Chamber to make sure that anything that we put in the bill would stand the test of public scrutiny and transparency. If I have put an earmark in the appropriations bill, I ought to be able to defend it, and I ought to be able to defend it not to just any Democrat or Republican on the floor of the House, but to the President of the United States and to the folks back home. I am not afraid of this. I think this is good fiscal policy. It builds on what the Appropriations Committee has already been doing in terms of eliminating 95 existing programs and bringing down Member earmarks tremendously. So I support this bill, and I hope that everybody else will.”