Minnick launches BanEarmarks.com

 

Boise, ID - Walt Minnick has launched a new website and petition effort to push for an end to Congressional earmarks and wasteful spending. The website can be found at www.banearmarks.com.

 

Minnick said that the Congress must get serious about tackling runaway spending by the federal government, and urged people from around the country to sign his petition.  

 

"There is no more important issue facing our nation than the need to reign in reckless spending," said Minnick, a longtime Idaho business leader who was recently hailedas one of the strongest deficit hawks in Congress, of either party. "Banning earmarks and implementing a collaborative process to strike wasteful spending are positive steps in the path to more fiscal accountability."

 

The new website highlights two measures from Minnick, a freshman representative from Idaho who has made the fight for fiscal accountability a cornerstone of his work in Congress. 

 

The first measure is a proposal to ban earmarks, the practice of allowing members of Congress to set aside funding for specific projects without having those projects go through the usual approval process. 

 

"A move by Congress to ban the practice of “earmarking” money for special projects would assure American taxpayers that their money is being spent wisely and carefully, and would send a message that Congress is serious about controlling wasteful spending," says the petition at BanEarmarks.com.

 

The second measure is a proposal that would give the President and Congress the constitutional authority to strike specific projects from federal spending bills. 

 

"This process would give the American people the open and fair debate they demand on controversial 'pork' spending," the petition says.

 

Minnick's website and petition urges the American people to push their member of Congress to support these specific proposals to curb wasteful spending by Congress. 

 

"I join Americans from around this country in urging Congress to take the tough medicine needed to restore our fiscal health and impose real accountability," the website states. "Please join Idaho Congressman Walt Minnick in pushing to ban earmarks and restore a constitutional version of the line-item veto, so that future generations will not be burdened by continued wasteful spending."