PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: There's going to be a big earmark vote in the House tomorrow:
Disappointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) rejection of House Republican calls for an immediate moratorium on all taxpayer-funded earmarks, House Republicans will force a vote on the issue tomorrow, House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) and Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO) announced this afternoon. The leaders said House Republicans will force the earmark reform vote as a higher education authorization bill comes to the floor containing what many argue is a taxpayer-funded slush fund for colleges and universities. . . .
Three GOP members of the House Appropriations Committee — Reps. Jack Kingston of Georgia, Frank Wolf of Virginia and Zack Wamp of Tennessee — have authored legislation that would bring the earmark process to a halt and establish a panel to identify ways to permanently change the spending process. Kingston-Wolf-Wamp has been cosponsored by 129 House Republicans, including the entire House Republican leadership team. However, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who as leader of the Democrat-controlled House has the power to shut down the chamber’s earmarking process immediately, declined to support the measure or the proposed moratorium.
