Congressman Platts Will Not Request Earmarks This Year

“I will not be requesting earmarks as part of this year’s federal budget.  As is well understood by the general public, the earmarking process in Washington D.C. is broken.  The number of earmarks has skyrocketed.  Billions in taxpayer dollars have been wasted.  The system has been abused on both sides of the aisle.  Last year’s 3,500-page omnibus appropriations bill, which I opposed, contained more than 9,000 earmarks costing taxpayers an estimated $12 billion. 

I have long been an advocate for reforming the earmarking process.  In my first term as a Member of Congress, I cosponsored legislation to establish a line-item veto for the President to eliminate ‘pork-barrel’ earmarks in larger spending measures.  I later introduced my own version of this legislation.  Under both Republican and Democratic Congresses, I have supported legislation intended to make the earmarking process more open and accountable.  More recently, I have joined with many of my Republican colleagues in pushing for legislation which would impose an immediate moratorium on earmarks while a Joint Committee on Earmark Reform works to recommend changes to the appropriations process.

Earmarks can fund worthy endeavors.  For example, for my own Congressional District, I have pursued and received earmarks for a number of local transportation and community projects supported by local officials.  The process for considering these projects was open and transparent.  At the same time, too many earmarked projects nationally have not been appropriate recipients of taxpayer dollars and received little or no scrutiny prior to passage. 

By not requesting earmarks this year, I will be joining with a number of Members of both parties who have decided to adopt their own moratorium while pushing for much needed reforms.  If Congress does not reform the process itself, I plan to further strengthen my office’s own process for selecting projects in the 19th Congressional District in future years.”