Members of Congress have returned after unwinding from a “grueling” legislative calendar:  The Senate was in session for 101 days and the House was in session for 76 days, compared to 141 days worked by the average American.  After catching up on their sleep, members will try to convince the folks back home to re-elect them.  Based on the August 8 primary results, incumbents better wake up.  The voters should also be aware that many members of Congress are preventing them from making informed decisions on Election Day.

As in most recent years, Congress is woefully behind in passing the annual appropriations bills, its most basic constitutional duty.  In addition to funding basic government functions, these bills will include thousands of pork-barrel projects.  Sources indicate that senators want to delay voting until after the November elections in order to avoid the scorn and mockery that surely would await them back home because of the pork-laden spending bills.

Pork-barrel spending is nothing new, but the deceitful act of purposefully stalling the budget process in an election year shows how far the practice has fallen out of favor with the general public.  By avoiding these critical votes, the members would hope to “look good” (or at least, not look bad) while obscuring the pork-fest that would occur in an omnibus appropriations bill after the election.  An omnibus bill would combine as many as nine individual spending bills a gigantic haystack in which to hide needles (pork).       

As documented in Citizens Against Government Waste’s 2006 Congressional Pig Book, the amount of pork in the federal budget skyrocketed from $3.1 billion in 1991 to a record $29 billion in 2006 an 835 percent increase.  Beyond the obvious frivolity of projects like $500,000 for the Sparta Teapot Museum in Sparta, North Carolina, pork has also played a central role in recent ethics and lobbying scandals.  It seems not a week goes by without a new revelation of earmark abuse.  In late July, it was reported that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) may have to shut down scientific research at the International Space Station.  Part of the reason for NASA’s budget squeeze is that, since 2001, members of Congress have earmarked $3 billion from the agency’s budget for pet projects in their home districts and states.  

Efforts to clean up the political process after a scandal-ridden year have yet to bear fruit.  The House lobbying/earmark reform bill (H.R. 4975) sits in an empty conference room with its Senate counterpart. 

The Senate has yet to vote on the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S. 2590), introduced by Senators Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.).  The “Google government” bill, as Sen. Coburn calls it, requires the Office of Management and Budget to run a single public website listing the names and locations of all individuals and groups receiving federal grants and contracts.  Such a database would be an invaluable resource for watchdog groups, the media, and bloggers to expose wasteful spending, conflicts of interest, and other shenanigans.  The bill has 29 co-sponsors and has been endorsed by groups from across the political spectrum. 

The purpose of voting is to hold elected officials accountable.  Yet Congress wants to conceal from the public, to the utmost extent possible, how their tax dollars are being spent.  That may explain why S. 2590 had been put on “hold” by an anonymous senator.