President Bush and Republican members of Congress have a critical choice to make and very little time left in which to do it. For Bush, the choice is whether to issue an executive order directing federal departments and agencies to ignore earmarks that aren’t explicitly included in the legislative text of the recently approved $515 billion omnibus spending bill. As we noted a week ago in this space, the Congressional Research Service has advised Congress that such an executive order would with the stroke of a pen kill the thousands of earmarks that are routinely “air-dropped” into the federal budget via committee reports on spending bills. This is because the Constitution requires that all federal expenditures originate in the House and be approvedby both chambers of Congress. Committee reports aren’t and so are not binding on the executive branch.
Bush has considered such an order for a week. This is no time for timidity. Signing such an executive order tomorrow would make a fine New Year’s Day present for American taxpayers. Finally, somebody in Washington would be acting decisively to end the waste and corruption of congressmen freely handing out millions of tax dollars to campaign donors, relatives and former staff members, and special interest allies.
