Threatens loss of federal funding
By Hazel Trice Edney
NNPA Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) says a proposed moratorium on so-called congressional “earmarks,” unlimited amounts of money designated for usually local projects, could severely hurt programs in the black community.
“There’s a big move going on in this country that we as African Americans have got to be very, very careful of, and that is this whole thing of killing earmarks. They’re trying to stop congressional earmarks,” Clyburn told black publishers representing the National Newspaper Publishers Association.
“If you cut out Congressional earmarks, you’re going to see a screeching halt to lots of the programs that our community benefits from. Our communities cannot afford high-powered lobbyists. They cannot afford very highly sophisticated grants writers. And they’re going to miss out on this federal funding.”
Questioning whether some of the funding is “wasteful government spending,” U. S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W. Va.), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, says he aims to place a moratorium on earmarks until the process for getting them is reformed.
If Byrd, an ex-Klansman now known as a conservative Democrat, followed through with a bill that passes both Houses, hurting programs such as Boys and Girls clubs and Call Me Mister, which provides enticements to black men to teach in public schools.
Earmarks specifically designed to win favor with constituents or assure reappointments to the Appropriations Committee by satisfied colleagues are often called “pork barrel politics.”
“It’s wasteful government spending when we earmark to the Boys and Girls Clubs or other programs, but it’s not wasteful programs when they use this money to put in new water systems for their communities,” says Clyburn.
The non-partisan Office of Management and Budget has not released the number and cost of earmarks since 2005 as expected by Congress last week. Speculation among some members is that the White House may have asked the OMB to withhold the report to save face for high-powered Republicans who just lost control of Congress.
The earmarks issue was just one priority brought before the publishers on Capital Hill for Black Press Week and the 180th Anniversary of the Black Press as nearly a dozen Congressional Black Caucus members and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi greeted the group.
Pelosi, the nation’s first female Speaker of the House, touted her record appointments of Black chairs, subcommittee chairs; plus Lorraine Miller of Texas, the first African American to serve as House Clerk. “She’s going to do a job even expanding diversity in the powerful position that she has,” says Pelosi.
The CBC, chaired by Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D-Mich.), has 43 members, representing more than 40 million Americans in 26 states. CBC members serve as heads of five committees and 17 subcommittees. As majority whip, Clyburn is largely responsible for communicating the Democratic perspective on bills and issues so that his colleagues understand and vote accordingly.
Even when Democrats fall short of support for the vision of the CBC, the group of 40 voting members now wields more power than ever, points out Rep. Al Green (D-Texas).
“We really want to dispel this myth that the Congressional Black Caucus is the conscience of America because it’s leading America,” Green says. “You need 218 to get anything past here, but it’s a very strong 40 votes that voted 100 percent on minimum wage, 100 percent on student loans.”
A bombshell announcement before the publishers was that the nearly 60 percent-black District of Columbia may finally get a voting representative in Congress. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who was not able to attend the publishers’ meeting, has no vote.
Former CBC Chairman Mel Watt (D-N.C.) is hopeful it could pass. “I think we probably have the votes to get it out of the House. I don’t know what it takes to get it out of the Senate. I don’t know if anybody’s focused that much on it until we can get it through the House,” he said.
Nevertheless, members appear heartened on all fronts.
“There are some new sheriffs in town,” says Clyburn. “We are now in the majority and we plan to use this majority to benefit the African-American community that sent us here.”