Kline Conference Call

As I mentioned earlier, I participated in a conference call with Congressman John Kline (MN-2 and my former Congressman). The purpose of this call today was to launch a new microsite Stop The Pork (www.stopthepork.com) . On the call with me were Rob Neppell of Porkbusters and my dear friends and fellow True North contributors Gary Gross from Let Freedom Ring (who live blogged the call), Janet Beihoffer from SCSU Scholars, Leo Pusateri from the Ice Palace and Derek Brigham and J.Ewing from Freedom Dogs.

Congressman Kline started off by talking about his conversion to the "no more pork" fold.

When I got to Congress I thought that this was the way things got done. I have since learned that this (the process of deciding which project gets funded) is not based on the merit of the project but by who you are, what party you are in and what committees you are on...

He then went on to note that last year, 12 members signed the no pork pledge - a number that has moved up to 50 this year and it does include a couple of Democrats (Ron Kind of Wisconsin and Henry Waxman of California).

The Congressman kept his remarks brief to allow questions from the bloggers on the call. Jerry lead us off by asking if there was a difference between earmarks and pork. He wanted to make sure that legit projects didn't get a short shrift in the march toward reform. Congressman Kline said that legit road funding projects are the ones where the money goes to the DOT and the state decides which projects are a priority - as opposed to those where the Congressman (or woman) goes in and dictates which projects are more worthy. Congressman Kline reiterated that the projects do not compete on merit - just on who the requesting party is.

Derek asked if Senator McCain was on board with the Project. Congressman Kline replied that while Senator McCain is on board with stopping pork, he has not "signed on" to this project specifically.

Rob asked what the long term goal of this project was - was it to stop pork altogether? Congressman Kline replied that a short term goal was a moratorium on all pork spending. He reminded us that Congress is granted the Constitutional authority to spend money, but that the process for doing so was broken. The long term goal is to reform the system into a rational merit based system.


Janet asked if we need to get more "seats" before we can make any progress on the "no pork" front. Congressman Kline mentioned that the movement has momentum - right now Congressional leaders are not putting spending issues on the floor to vote on because they know that the public sentiment is against irresponsible spending. He said that they are "afraid" to put these issues on the floor where they can be held to their voting record. He said that they are "playing on the calendar" - waiting to see what the outcome of the election is before they do their job. This will be an issue during the campaign.

Carrying forward on the momentum question I asked if there was a mechanism to get non-incumbents (like UT 3 candidate Jason Chaffetz) on board - candidates who have made pork a central issue to their own campaigns. Congressman Kline answered that there wasn't really anything yet but that he would look into it. He mentioned that Brian Davis (challenger to MN1 Democrat incumbent Tim Walz) has also campaigned on earmark reform so he would try to find a way (other than signing the petition on the site) to get these challengers involved.

Mine was the last question and we ended the call. Those of you who want to know more about earmark reform can go to Congressman Kline's site (for the petition), Porkbusters OR Reagan21 which is a bi-cameral coalition of conservative legislators who are standing up for a 21st century Reagan Revolution of government reform.