It appears President Bush has a legal tool at his disposal that could be quickly employed to eliminate most congressional earmarks with the stroke of a pen, and it comes to him courtesy of the Congressional Research Service.
The never-before-used tool is a presidential executive order directing federal departments and agencies not to spend any tax dollars that aren?t explicitly appropriated in the text of a bill. Because the vast majority of earmarks are found in committee, managers or conference reports about a bill rather than in the legislation itself, a coalition of conservative advocacy and research organizations wants Bush to issue such an executive order regarding the just-passed $515.7 billion omnibus spending bill.
The monstrous spending bill was more than 3,500 pages long, counting its associated reports, with nearly 700 of those pages being lists of 9,400-plus earmarks. Together with the earmarks included in a defense bill approved earlier in the year, the first session of the 110th Congress approved more than 11,000 earmarks, the second-highest annual total in recent years.
In a letter that was signed by 19 groups and delivered to Bush over the weekend, the organizations noted the CRS opinion: “A December 18 legal analysis by the Congressional Research Service concluded that ?because the language of committee reports do not meet the procedural requirements of Article I of the Constitution ? specifically, bicameralism and presentment ? they are not laws and, therefore, are not legally binding on executive agencies. … Given both the implied legal and constitutional authority as well as the long-standing accepted process of presidents, it appears that a president can, if he so chooses, issue an executive order with respect to earmarks contained solely in committee reports and not in any way incorporated into the legislative text.? ”
The joint letter added: “On December 20, you stated that you were ?instructing the budget director to review options for dealing with the wasteful spending in the omnibus bill.? We applaud you for this leadership, and ask that you follow through by issuing an executive order formally directing all federal agencies to ignore non-legislative earmarks tucked into committee reports and statements of managers. Such an action is within your constitutional powers, and would strike a blow for fiscal responsibility now while setting a valuable precedent for the future.”
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has called earmarks “the gateway drug to federal spending addiction” in Congress. Withdrawal from any addiction can be extremely difficult, and the addict?s first step to recovery often begins with an intervention by outsiders. A Bush executive order against earmarks is just the intervention the fiscal doctor ordered for Congress.
