[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 8145]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




               THE PRACTICE OF EARMARKS IS OUT OF CONTROL

  (Mr. FLAKE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, many of us in this body have realized for 
quite a while that the practice of earmarking is out of control. When 
we herald the fact that we had a mere 12,000 earmarks last year, as 
opposed to only 15,000 a couple of years ago, we know that something is 
wrong.
  But the exercise we went through last week was perhaps the best 
indication we had yet that we still have a long way to go. We 
authorized the Justice Department to investigate the origin of an 
immaculate earmark, an earmark that wasn't in either the House or 
Senate version of the bill, that only showed up when the President 
signed the legislation. The earmark was not in either the House or 
Senate version. Now, one would think that the discovery of an 
immaculate earmark would prompt an immediate congressional 
investigation. Instead, we waited 2 years and then authorized the 
Justice Department to look into it.
  Mr. Speaker, we owe this great institution far better than we're 
giving it, from bridges to nowhere to teapot museums, to immaculate 
earmarks that we don't even pass, let alone scrutinize. We can do far 
better than this.

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