Jim Inhofe: “This amendment is something that would reduce expenditures, do something about the deficit. I know there are a lot of my…”

“This amendment is something that would reduce expenditures, do something about the deficit. I know there are a lot of my Democratic friends and Republican friends alike who would like a chance to do this. I know there is a feel-good vote coming up on earmarks, but that does not reduce anything in terms of the expenditures. If you vote on an earmark, and you defeat the earmark, it does not cut the amount of money, but the underlying bill will go back to some bureaucracy. It can be the Department of the Interior. It can be the Environmental Protection Agency. It can be any number of departments. Then an unelected bureaucrat will be making that decision. It was interesting the other day when, in a three-part series, Sean Hannity had on his program 102 earmarks. When he was all through--and I read all of these Monday on the floor--the interesting thing about it, what they all had in common was not one of those earmarks was a congressional earmark. They were all bureaucratic earmarks. That is where the problem is, not the congressional earmarks. So I am going to urge my friends to support a real effort, a sincere effort, and an effective effort to reduce government spending by voting for my amendment.”