Phony ethics reform

The Democrats and many Republicans are bragging about the ethics reform package making its way through the House and Senate, it really is a Potemkin bill. While it's nice that they're limiting meals and free plane trips from lobbyiests, they have watered down reforming earmarks. And, as The Examiner's editorial explains, that is where the actual effects of special interest influence occur.

There are a few positive provisions in the bill, but the bottom line is that it is stuffed with cosmetic changes that fail to address the core issues of congressional corruption spawned by earmarks.

Earmarks corrupt Congress in two fundamental ways: First, earmarks allow members to dole out tax dollars to themselves, family and staff members, campaign donors and favored special interests with no accountability. Second, members trade earmarks to gain votes for more and bigger federal spending programs. This is why Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., calls earmarks "the gateway drug to federal spending addiction."

In fact, Reid and Pelosi killed the reform bill's original provision prohibiting earmark trading for votes, and they all but gutted the prohibition on earmarks to family and staff members. As for transparency, Reid lowered the Senate earmark disclosure suspension threshold from 67 votes to 60 and made himself arbiter of certifying compliance, instead of the Senate parliamentarian. This is like an addict condemning drugs as he heads to the backroom to shoot up again.

Reid and Pelosi are not alone in pretending to advance genuine reforms. As Roll Call predicted last month, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is now undercutting Coburn and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., and signaling the desire of many GOP establishmentarians to move on from earmarks and ethics issues. Next, McConnell will credit a "bipartisan consensus" as key to victory for reform in the Senate, thereby enabling Democrats to claim they’ve kept their 2006 campaign promise. Then members on both sides of the aisle in Congress can go on pretending they are serious about honest leadership and open government in Washington.

Mark Tapscott covers how Republican congressional leaders have been complicit in blocking reformers' efforts to really attack earmark problems.