Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Show Us Your Earmarks

Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), the nation's largest taxpayer watchdog group (a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government) with over one million members and supporters nationwide is asking for your help in order to force each member of Congress to 'fess up and disclose their earmark requests.

"CAGW is right now waging an aggressive campaign to determine which members of Congress are willing to pay more than lip service to transparency and accountability. By letter and by phone, we are calling on each member of the House and Senate to disclose the earmark requests they submitted to their respective Appropriations Committees.

But we need your help to hold your elected officials accountable.

I urge you to ask your Representative and Senators to disclose their earmark requests.

The leadership of the 110th Congress took control promising the “most honest, most open, most ethical Congress in history” and we are holding them to their word! While House and Senate rules do not require members of Congress to make their earmark requests available to the public, Americans deserve to know on which pet projects their elected representatives would lavish their hard-earned tax dollars.

Transparency is a vital first step toward eliminating the tens of billions of dollars spent on congressional earmarks annually and ending the “culture of corruption” that earmarking breeds.

Help us promote transparency and accountability by demanding that your Representative and Senators release their earmark requests today!

CAGW is publishing the responses of members of the House and Senate on our website, as well as the lists of earmark requests they provide."

Thomas A. Schatz, President
Citizens Against Government Waste