On the recordFebruary 2, 2012
As it turned out, the President was the one who did the earmarks of the $800 billion stimulus program. Again, getting back to article I, section 9: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law. The law, that is us. We are the legislative branch of government. That is what we are supposed to do. I think everyone understands that. It is unintended, and I know a lot of people out there would say, well, we want to kill all earmarks, without stopping to think that that is all spending and that is our constitutional duty. I would say if we continue on making permanent and current moratoriums on congressional earmarks, then we are limiting our ability to govern with the President. If all we are doing is handing the President pots of money and requiring that he have competitive grants to disburse the funds, then we are washing our hands of the outcome. There is no light or transparency inherent to the Federal grant-making process. So what we are doing is giving up our constitutional responsibility in ceding that to the President. It could be that things are going to be refined, with further definitions, and I have no objection to that. But I am saying we have one very simple solution to it. When the votes come up today, I will announce right now, if we don't have a definition of earmark, then I would vote against a permanent moratorium on earmarks because that is our constitutional responsibility.…
