The Senate will ban earmarks, the Senate’s appropriations chief announced this week. Hawaii Democrat Daniel Inouye said he would enforce a two-year moratorium on setting money aside for individual legislators’ pet projects, following a similar pledge by the Republican-controlled House and a threat by President Obama to veto any bill sent to him with earmarks.
Inouye, an ardent defender of Congress’s spending authority, acceded to the moratorium as pressure mounted to halt a practice widely seen as wasteful. “Given the reality before us,” he said, “it makes no sense to accept earmark requests that have no chance of being enacted into law.”
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.