The heads of both Congressional committees in charge of federal spending bills announced plans for a temporary ban on controversial earmarks Monday.
U.S. Rep. Dave Obey, D-Wis., and U.S. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., said in a joint statement that they would keep the moratorium in place until a more transparent, accountable process is put into place.
""We will work to restore an accountable, above-board, transparent process for funding decisions and put an end to the abuses that have harmed the credibility of Congress,"" the statement read.
The moratorium should have a minimal impact on Wisconsin, according to David Canon, political science professor at UW-Madison, because Wisconsin gets less federal dollars than most states from controversial ""pork"" earmarks.
Canon said that Wisconsin's economic success and political opposition to pork are largely responsible for this difference.
""We have members of Congress who have taken principled stands against them,"" Canon said.
Citizens Against Wasteful Spending, a group that monitors pork, claimed that Wisconsin received more than $117 million dollars, or $21.28 per capita in 2006.
This puts Wisconsin 41st in the country and below the national per capita average of $30.55.
Obey is not the only Wisconsin congressman to take on the issue of ""pork."" In March, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., tried to combat pork by giving the president the power to use a line-item veto to eliminate certain parts of spending bills.
Organizations like CAWS applauded the announcement, claiming reforming earmarks is important because they are responsible for government corruption as well as ""pork-barrel"" spending.
Concerns of corruption are especially high after Rep. Randy ""Duke"" Cunningham, R-Calif., admitted to assigning earmarks to defense contractors in return for bribes.
Ellis Brachman, a spokesman for Obey, said while the Democrats are promoting reform, they do not know how it will happen or what those reforms will be.
""Nobody knows what's going to happen at this point,"" Brachman said.
Canon said the reforms proposed by Obey and Byrd would most likely aim at improving the process by which earmarks are added.
This could include imposing a ""cooling off period"" that would prevent the addition of late-night earmarks to bills so they could avoid scrutiny.
