Where are all those Bluedog dems?

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Where are they now?

"The Blue Dog Coalition has a history of putting forth common-sense policies that will make our country an even better place to live, now and in the future. Thanks to the leadership of this coalition, Congress is taking steps to reverse the irresponsible policy of the last few years so we don’t pass on trillions of dollars in debt to our children and grandchildren. I’m proud to serve as Policy Co-Chair for the Blue Dogs and look forward to working with the leadership on both sides of the aisle to address the many issues facing our country, such as the high cost of health care.” "

It seems like I predicted before the last election that they were just more of the same ole dimocrats. And before you go there this statement in no way takes up for or overlooks Republicans acting he same way.

Pork Barrell Stonewall

The Democrats refuse to allow public scrutiny of all earmarks.

BY JOHN BOEHNER

Thursday, September 27, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

House Republicans have launched a renewed effort to change the way Congress spends taxpayers' money. Our goal: Stop Congress from tucking members' pet spending projects into bills without public scrutiny and debate.

Pork-barrel earmarks were an important factor in the loss of the GOP majority last November. Years of irresponsible earmarks, slipped into bills behind closed doors without public debate or scrutiny, eroded Republicans' reputation as the party of fiscal responsibility and trustworthy custodians of taxpayer funds.

I've never made a secret of my distaste for worthless pork. Just a few months after being elected as majority leader last year, we enacted comprehensive reforms that brought the earmark process out into broad daylight. All taxpayer-funded earmarks had to be publicly disclosed and subject to challenge and debate. If you sponsor a project, we argued, you ought to be willing to put your name on it and defend it--and if not, you shouldn't ask taxpayers to pay for it. These reforms were the right thing to do--and they still are.

The Democratic majority came to power in January promising to do a better job on earmarks. They appeared to preserve our reforms and even take them a bit further. I commended Democrats publicly for this action.

Unfortunately, the leadership reversed course. Desperate to advance their agenda, they began trading earmarks for votes, dangling taxpayer-funded goodies in front of wavering members to win their support for leadership priorities.

The Democrats' retreat began quietly, with passage of a "continuing resolution" in February that contained hidden earmarks. It steadily became more blatant. A troop funding bill was loaded with pork-barrel spending for things like spinach and peanuts--which one top Democrat publicly conceded was only in the bill to buy votes. Members were denied the ability to challenge individual earmarks on the House floor, stepping back from our original reforms and leaving members with no way to force a floor debate and vote on any earmark, even if it violated the rules or was particularly egregious.

By June, the leadership's dismal retreat culminated in a plan to pass appropriations bills loaded with slush funds for secret earmarks. The plan was met with a torrent of public criticism from voices across the political spectrum, and rightly so. House Republicans rallied to defeat the "secret earmarks" plan. It was a spirited fight: Everyone pitched in, and we fought with an energy found only in legislators who believe in their cause. It was a sign of a Republican Party beginning to return to its roots, breaking with past errors, and reconnecting with its principles. We forced Democrats to abandon their ill-conceived plan.

Now it's time for the next step. In dropping their plans for slush funds for secret earmarks, the Democrats agreed to require disclosure and debate on earmarks in appropriations bills. But this fix did not apply to tax and authorizing bills, which have historically been vehicles for some of the most indefensible earmarks churned out by Congress.

An authorizing bill was recently the vehicle for an illegitimate earmark requested by Rep. John Murtha (D., Pa.) that shifted $23 million in taxpayer funds to the so-called National Drug Intelligence Center--a facility located in Mr. Murtha's district that was declared "expensive and duplicative" by independent government analysts. The Democrats' bill to reauthorize the State Children's Health Insurance Program was loaded up with millions in hospital earmarks that were never debated and never subject to challenge on the House floor.

Under the procedures of the current House leadership, members still cannot force a debate or vote on any earmark in any non-appropriations bill that comes to the floor. This flawed system is ripe for abuse. It steps backward from the reforms Republicans implemented last year and makes a mockery of Democrats' promise to run a more transparent and accountable Congress.

On June 12, I and other GOP leaders introduced legislation that would fully restore our reforms and require all earmarks in all types of bills--tax, appropriations, or authorizing--to be publicly disclosed and subject to challenge and open debate on the floor.

Since then I've repeatedly asked Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi to work with us to correct this loophole, but there has been no action. Left with no other option, I filed a discharge petition in the House to force a vote on our reforms. Once this petition receives 218 member signatures, House rules require the majority to bring it to the House floor for an up-or-down vote.

House Republicans are returning to the fiscally conservative roots that first launched us into the majority in the 1990s. Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership appears intent on repeating the same mistakes that helped bring our majority to an end. Fixing the earmark process and using the power of public scrutiny to stop wasteful pork-barrel spending is essential if we are to restore the bonds of trust between the American people and their elected leaders.

Mr. Boehner is the Republican leader in the House of Representatives.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110010656

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Man, I love Boehner. For six years, a Republican congress ratcheted up pork-barrel spending to unprecedented levels, and now he's hammering the Dims?

Yeah, he hides behind some phoney-baloney Spending Reform package that he passed last year after the public opinion polls went south. But what's Boehner's real record? In 2006, he blocked dozens of attempts to remove spending earmarks from bills.

Need examples? In 2006, Boehner supported earmarks of $500,000 to renovate a municipal swimming pool in Banning, Calif.; $250,000 for a performing arts center in Plattsburgh, N.Y.; $1 million for a locomotive demonstration in Pennsylvania; $1 million for the Southern and Eastern Kentucky Tourism Development Association; $180,000 for tomato production in Ohio; and $1.4 million in two separate earmarks for Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut.

Yep. That's fiscal rectitude if ever I saw it. In fact, Keith Ashdown , vice president for policy at Taxpayers for Common Sense, agrees on this apparent disconnect between Boehners words and deeds. "They're trying to spin their way out of the earmark problem. It's insulting, because they just believe this is their money to spend."

Face it. The Republican and Democratic leadership are equally guilty on this issue.