The Sewall-Belmont house is one of the hottest places in the city for rich D.C. insiders to canoodle and raise cash at $1000-a-plate dinners, and — good news!—it's funded with your tax dollars. The funds can be funneled to Sewall-Belmont because it's also a museum of women's history and rights, and who could oppose that?
But instead of a symbol for women's advancement, in some cases it's become a symbol of women's mutual back-scratching in the interest of special interests. Sen. Mary Landrieu got an award from the Sewall-Belmont House, and later made sure the house got a $1 million earmark. Hope and change! Watch Reason TV's report:
Meanwhile, Rep. Jeff Flake continues his usually lonely crusade against earmarks. The politics of this election year may earn him some company, however:
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) is asking House Republicans to sign a petition that would force a vote in the Conference on a yearlong earmark moratorium for GOP Members.
“The explosion of earmarking during our years in control contributed greatly to the tarnishing of our reputation for fiscal discipline in the eyes of the taxpayer,” Flake wrote in a “Dear Colleague” letter. “The time is now to send a clear and decisive message to taxpayers from coast to coast.”
Flake began circulating the petition, which calls for Republicans to adopt an earmark ban before the March 19 deadline for submitting appropriations requests, during a meeting of the Republican Study Committee last week.
A Flake spokesman said the Arizona Republican already has 17 of the 50 Republican signatures necessary to force the Conference to meet and discuss the moratorium.
