John Cornyn: “I was proud to join my friend and colleague from South Carolina, Senator DeMint, in offering an amendment that would…”

“I was proud to join my friend and colleague from South Carolina, Senator DeMint, in offering an amendment that would simply place in the Senate bill the very sensible language regarding earmarks that the House of Representatives has already included. Speaker Pelosi and her colleagues are rightly proud of the very clear definition of earmarks they have included in that legislation that will help to identify spending measures and highlight them so we can have the kind of debate and sort of public scrutiny we should expect and, indeed, welcome, into the appropriations and legislative process. Increased transparency for earmarks is something we ought to embrace and it ought to create in us the ability to discern much better than we have been what kind of spending is in the general welfare of the American people and why that kind of spending is absolutely necessary.”