Earmarks: The Gateway Drug to Spending Addiction

Omnibusting is reporting that Bush is expected to announce tomorrow whether or not he’ll issue the much-anticipated executive order telling federal agencies to ignore the vast majority of the earmarks in this year’s omnibus.  This could be huge, and could give Bush, who has been struggling to bolster his fiscal conservative credentials, an big win with the public.  Polls consistently indicate that public is overwhelmingly against earmarks (67% in this poll), making this another instance where good policy is also good politics.

It’s obviously not a popular movie amongst Congress’s big-spenders, however — though they’re loathe to admit it. John Fund at the Wall Street Journal  writes that:

This possibility led Old Bull members of Congress to call the White House, complaining that such a move would threaten its relations with the legislative branch and threatening retribution. But none of those complaints or threats were made publicly. Members know how unpopular earmarking is with voters, and they also know that Mr. Bush could easily turn the tables on them if they actually engaged in petty revenge over the loss of their budgetary toys.

I’ve written quite a bit about this in the past, and FreedomWorks has clearly and loudly expressed its support for the order.   One only hopes that, when tomorrow comes, President Bush can look past the complaints of Congress’s spendaholics and do what’s right.