House Proposal to Reform Earmarks Employs Double Standard, Largely Exempting Earmarks Packaged as Special Interest Tax Breaks
End Notes
[1] House Resolution 1000, reported, with an amendment, by the Committee on Rules on September 14, 2006.
[2] The bills’ definition of tax earmarks would be restricted to those measures that provide a tax break to a single beneficiary. A beneficiary could be a business, a partnership, a trust, a non-profit group, or a single taxpayer. (Note: the proposed legislation does not apply to exemptions from tariffs; such provisions would not be considered earmarks for purposes of the proposed rule, regardless of whether they benefit only a single business.)
[3] See “House ‘Line-Item Veto’ Proposal Invites Abuse By Executive Branch;” Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, June 19, 2006, at https://www.cbpp.org/6-19-06bud2.pdf.
[4] See, for example, “The Developing Crisis: Deficits Matter,” a joint statement issued September 29, 2003, by the Committee for Economic Development, the Concord Coalition, and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, available at https://www.cbpp.org/9-29-03bud-stmt.pdf, and “Joint Statement on the Need for Pay-As-You-Go Discipline,” issued June 23, 2005, by the Concord Coalition, the Committee for Economic Development, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, and Centrists.org, available at https://www.cbpp.org/6-23-05bud.pdf.