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Friday, January 05, 2007
House Passes PAYGO and Earmark Disclosure Rules
By a 280-152 vote earlier this afternoon, the House adopted the civility and fiscal responsibility titles of Speaker Pelosi's internal rules package. Lobby and ethics reform titles were adopted yesterday.
- Conference Committee and Voting Time Rules
: require that 48 hours notice of meetings be provided to ensure member attendance, making sure information is available to all conferees, and barring conference report text changes after members have signed the report.
PAYGO Budget Enforcement Rule: requires spending cut or tax increase offsets be included in any measure providing new entitlement spending or tax cuts. But because it is a House rule and not law, it can be waived with a supermajority vote and survive a point of order against a measure that violates the rule.
Earmark Disclosure Rule: requires that sponsors of individual projects be identified in all spending, authorizing and tax legislation. Members will have to provide a justification for each earmark and certify that neither they nor their spouses will benefit from it.
Democrats won over 48 Republicans, mostly on the strength of the earmarks provision: "I appreciate and I want to compliment the Democrats for doing stronger earmark reform than we did," said renown porkhunter Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ).
The PAYGO piece severely restricts Democrats' room for maneuver on promised initiatives ranging from AMT reform, to cutting student loan interest rates, to fixing the Medicare prescription drug "doughnut hole." But, as we have noticed, talk is already afoot about how to tiptoe around PAYGO.
Posted by Dana Chasin
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