Economics and Government

The Democrats and Republicans came to an agreement on one thing in that something needs to be done about earmarks. In Congress the big spenders are setting all the rules in the way in which earmarks are getting passed. The new way that these earmarks are getting passed is a technique outside the legislation process that is also kept hidden from the public. The point of these earmarks are for a Congress mans home district to get an amount of money to do something productive to make the home district better off. There are Congress man that are taking a step in the right direction on earmarks like David Obey of Wisconsin who had all the earmarks stripped of the 2007 spending bill. Although we dont see any earmarks in the spending bill there are still thousands in the works. In Bush's recent State of the Union address he has comited to make cutting the amount of earmarks in half, and also to find these earmarks in a more transparent way to be analyzed and debated. The administration has taken steps towards cutting this problem of earmarks in half. The steps that have been taken are that the earmarks are required to be identified in most cases and that the administration has a new strict definition of what counts as an earmark. In order for these new earmark plans to hold true Bush needs to pay close attention to what is going on.