Subject: Harry Reid embraces earmarks - POLITICO.com Print View
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Harry Reid embraces earmarks - POLITICO.com Print View

Harry Reid is comparing Republicans to “greased pigs” — but he’s not afraid of a little pork.

The majority leader gave a strong defense of congressional earmarks on Tuesday afternoon and said President Barack Obama is “wrong” to support a ban on congressional earmarks installed by the tea party wave of Republicans.

Reid, perhaps the president’s closest ally in the Senate, made sure that reporters did not second-guess his remarks boosting the controversial spending practice, advising that journalists “underline, underscore” and use “exclamation marks” when writing about the Nevada Democrat’s position.

(Also on POLITICO: Reid compares GOP to 'greased pigs')

“I have been a fan of earmarks since I got here the first day. Keep in mind that’s what the country has done for more than 200 years, except for the brief period of time in recent years that we haven’t done these,” Reid said, adding of Obama: “He’s wrong.”

Obama embraced a prohibition on lawmaker-directed earmark spending in 2011, coinciding with Speaker John Boehner banning earmarks when Republicans took the House. In the Senate, too, earmarks have disappeared, making it more difficult for committee chairmen and leaders to ease passage of major bills by dangling spending to fence-sitting lawmakers.

But senators, especially those who have served on appropriations committees like Reid, are beginning to agitate for a revival of earmarks, particularly given the impending retirement of anti-earmark crusader Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.). Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) recently called earmarks the “glue” that held together each transportation bill; Coburn responded through a Wall Street Journal editorial that “restoring earmarks in today’s Congress would be like opening a bar tab for a bunch of recovering alcoholics.”

(Also on POLITICO: Little hope for Keystone vote)

But Reid clearly sides against the earmark ban, which many veteran lawmakers argue gives the Obama administration undue influence over the spending in their home states. Reid said he would be “fine” with more transparency — but said earmarks are better than the administration making decisions for him.

“It is wrong to have bureaucrats downtown make decisions in Nevada that I can make better than they can make. I don’t run away at all — this is something that has been going on for centuries in our country and it has worked quite well,” Reid said.