By TOM COBURN Updated Feb. 10, 2006 12:01 a.m. ET
John McCain and I recently delivered a letter to our colleagues announcing our intention to challenge every individual earmark on the floor of the Senate. Many senators, staff and reporters have asked if we are serious. The answer is yes.
I am convinced that forcing hundreds or, if necessary, thousands of votes to strike individual earmarks is the only way to produce meaningful results for American taxpayers. Bringing the Senate to a standstill for as long as it takes would be a small price to pay for shutting down what Jack Abramoff described as Congress's "earmark favor factory." The battle against pork is crucial. Pork is the root cause of the unholy relationship between some members of Congress, lobbyists and donors. Inside Congress, the pork process is effectively a black market economy: Thousands of instances exist where appropriations are leveraged for fundraising dollars or political capital. It is delusional to claim Congress can redeem its relationship with K Street without eliminating earmarks. The problem is not lobbyists. The problem is us.
Those who argue that fighting pork distracts members from the more costly challenge of entitlement reform don't understand human nature. Earmarks are a gateway drug on the road to the spending addiction. One day an otherwise frugal member votes for pork, the next day he or she votes for a bloated spending bill or entitlement expansion: A "no" vote might cut off their access to earmarks.
The most vocal opponents to a zero-tolerance approach toward pork are, sadly, the bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, to his credit, has issued only a mild defense of earmarking by stating we should "mend, not end" the practice. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Denny Hastert, on the other hand, have been enthusiastic in their defense of pork. Sen. Reid offered a fictional account of American history when he said the pork process "has been going on since we were a country." He and other pork apologists ignore the reality that pork as we know it today didn't exist 20 years ago. In 1987, President Reagan vetoed a spending bill because it contained 121 earmarks. The number of earmarks has skyrocketed over the past decade, from 4,126 in 1994 to 15,268 in 2005, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Nowhere in our founding documents is a justification for today's out-of-control earmarking. In fact, Madison and the other framers were clear that the general welfare clause of the Constitution should never be construed as a blank check for Congress. Pork is a modern indulgence, not an ancient or noble tradition.
Speaker Hastert, for his part, has said pork is "what members do" and that members are best positioned to know where to put a "red light in their district." This vision of an imperial Congress, where urban planners in state and local governments can be usurped by individual congressman and their 20-something staffers, is unsettling. And every hour members spend on parochial obsessions is an hour they can't devote to oversight, balancing the budget or serious national security issues.
The American people are demanding real reform, not cosmetic measures that will clean the outside of the cup but leave the inside filthy. As Congress confronts its culture of corruption and our enormous fiscal challenges, it's time to "just say no" to earmarks.
Mr. Coburn is a Republican senator from Oklahoma.