So it finally happened at 10:30 tonight. The DeMint earmark moratorium amendment to the budget resolution came to a vote.

When faced with the opportunity to get their spending house in order, the Senate decided to continue business as usual. Instead of voting to take a breath and establishing a system that would ensure taxpayers could be confident that their money was being spent wisely and appropriately, they rejected the bi-partisan DeMint-McCain-McCaskill one year earmark moratorium by a vote of 29-71. Because the amendment was deemed non-germane it required 60 votes to waive a point of order. Kind of funny when you think about it, earmarks not being germane to the budget??

This is just another battle in a longer war to bring greater accountability and transparency to how Congress spends our taxpayer dollars. Remember that on the same Senate floor, an amendment to shift funds from the “Bridges to Nowhere” to the destroyed I-10 bridge in New Orleans failed by an 85-12 margin. Now two and half years later, I think it is clear that the real victors that day were the reformers. The Governor of Alaska cancelled one bridge, Republicans lost their majority and greater transparency measures were enacted, but there is still bumpy road ahead to full budget transparency and accountability.

The strong bi-partisan support of this amendment – each of the three Presidential contenders were a co-sponsor – makes it clear that this is an issue that will not go away. In fact, Speaker Pelosi’s recent comments about the possibility of no earmarks in FY09 adds fuel to the earmark reform fire.

The public has a right to know how their tax dollars are being spent and by whom. Congress has an obligation to establish a system where funding decisions are being made not on the basis of political muscle but project merit. In FY08, Congress approved $18.3 billion in earmarks. In FY09, they should halve that number, put all earmark information and funding background on the internet, eliminate earmarks in classified budgets and those for private companies.