Senator Jim DeMint has decided to bring the fight over earmark reform to the floor of the Senate shortly after House Democrats rejected a similar measure earlier this month. By a vote of 204 to 196, John Boehner’s proposed 1 year moratorium on all earmarks failed to pass the House, with only 7 Democrats voting in favor of the amendment. Senator DeMint announced today he intends to bring the earmark fight to the Senate.

Hoping to bring the House fight over earmark reform to the Senate, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) will propose a full one-year moratorium on considering bills with earmarks as part of the fiscal 2009 budget resolution, the lawmaker said Monday.

DeMint, who will discuss the moratorium during today’s weekly GOP luncheon, said he believes his proposal could create the political room needed to bring reform to the process.

Although I doubt this bill has much of a chance of passing, I am happy to see that DeMint will force Senators to go on record as for or against real earmark reform. In all likelihood Senator DeMint’s bill will be met with the same type of finger pointing as was met by the House version of the bill.

“For the Republican Party leadership to belatedly give us lectures on earmarks is, in my view, akin to reformed alcoholics giving lectures on temperance,” said Rep. David R. Obey, Wisconsin Democrat and chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “The previous Republican leadership was notorious for using earmarks as enticements in order to get their membership to vote for bills that individuals may otherwise not be inclined to vote for.”

Prior to the 2006 elections Democrats scolded Republicans for wasteful spending throughout their years in power, and the people agreed with them. Having realized the error of their ways, and hopefully in an effort to reduce wasteful government spending which has plagued Congress for decades, Republicans are now trying to place a moratorium on earmarks for a period of one year until real reforms can be put into place.

Rather than joining Republicans in working to clean up the earmark process, Democrats have resorted to acting like spoiled school children pointing their finger and saying “You did it so why can’t we?” That fact that seems to elude House Democrats is their insistence to the American people that Congress would be run differently under their control. What we have seen has been more of the same. Just last week in fact, Rep Jack Murtha won the Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) “Porker of the Year” award for 2007.

I will be looking forward to see how Senators Obama, Clinton and McCain vote on this bill.

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Congress, Election 2008, Features, Politics, Taxes