Speaker Face-Lift may steal earmark reform from GOP
http://www.cqpolitics.com…000002682132′
House Democrats are discussing a plan to hijack a signature issue of the opposition party: earmarks.
Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer and senior Democratic aides said that Speaker Nancy Pelosi , other party leaders and their staffs were examining a moratorium on appropriations earmarks.
“I don’t know that that is going to happen. But we are discussing it,” said Hoyer, D-Md.
An earmark cutoff would be a dramatic change to business as usual. Incumbents would no longer be able to point to such directed spending to demonstrate a local benefit to sending them to Washington.
But it would also co-opt a GOP campaign theme and, despite the potential political handicap to Democratic incumbents, Pelosi is considering the move as a demonstration of fiscal responsibility.
Hey, hijacking GOP initiatives worked for Clinton after the 1994 mid-terms didn’t it?