VIRTUCON EXCLUSIVE: Rob Wittman’s New Earmark Policy Goes Into Effect

U.S. Rep. Rob Wittman has long sought to keep earmarks and federal spending under control.  For instance, on July 24, 2009, Wittman offered an amendment to cut 0.5% or $803,270,000 from the Labor, Health and Human Services appropriations bill, which is the largest of the 12 annual appropriations bills. The bill was set to receive an increase of 12% funding, meaning his amendment would have cut the increase to 11.5%. Legislators voted against his amendment by 199-229.  Some of the floor debate can be seen here:

It was at this point that he realized if they could not even cut 1/2 of 1%, the process was so broken, that he could no longer participate in the appropraiations (or earmark) process.  In the past, the only times he would even request an earmark was if a locality within his congressional district requested it and the earmark required the locality to produce matching funds of its own to receive the federal funds.

After talking with numerous constituents about this issue, he and his staff worked hard for the past several months to develop further restrictions on federal earmarks.  Under his new policy which went into effect in December, the only earmarks that he will request will be for national defense and he must first receive a request from the federal agency seeking it before he will even consider submitting it.  All localities within the First District have now been notified as to the change as such requests from them will no longer be considered.

This goes to show that Rob Wittman is precisely the type of representative that the people of America’s First Congressional District expect to have fighting for them in Washington.  This sort of leadership should be held up as an example for Republicans everywhere as they fight to shake off their Tom DeLay “hangover” where he envisioned Republicans earmarking their way into a permanent majority.  (That worked out about as well as DeLay’s “Dancing With The Stars” appearance.)