[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 175 (Monday, December 8, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H12753]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 INCREASED EARMARKS IN THE OMNIBUS BILL

  (Mr. FLAKE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to talk about the omnibus bill 
that we will be passing later today, and I rise with great reluctance 
to criticize the bill. This Republican Congress has increased the 
number of earmarks in bills by about four-fold in just the past couple 
of years. This is no way to do business.
  We speak a great deal and at great length in this House about rooting 
out waste, fraud, and abuse in the Federal agencies in the way we spend 
money with the Federal Government. I would suggest that we look no 
further than the earmarks that we propose in this bill and other 
spending bills to root out waste, fraud, and abuse.
  Most of these earmarks simply benefit one Member, one project. It is 
typically referred to as pork-barrel spending. We as Republicans have 
decried this practice for years, and now we seem to have embraced it.
  Mr. Speaker, I think we need to turn a different direction and 
realize that if we want fiscal restraint, if we want to return to 
balanced budgets, then we have to do something about this kind of 
spending.

                          ____________________