David Obey: “I would like to discuss two matters. The first is the question of congressional earmarks, and the second is the actual…”

“I would like to discuss two matters. The first is the question of congressional earmarks, and the second is the actual substance of this bill. We have seen much attention paid over the past several months to the practice of Congress earmarking certain projects. This bill is a project-oriented bill, and so there will be quite a lot of that going on before the bill is finished. But I would like to put that in context. The fact is that the administration has requested far more dollars for earmark projects for this bill than the Congress traditionally provides. Example: in fiscal year 2006, which is the last year we had a completed bill, the President asked for 987 specific earmark projects in the budget for the Army Corps of Engineers, costing $3.8 billion. The Congress appropriated $1.1 billion for projects that it ranked as high priority. The result: 77 percent of the Army Corps budget went for projects earmarked by the administration; 23 percent went for projects earmarked by the Congress of the United States.”