Gillibrand urges earmark transparency


Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand D-N.Y., said Tuesday that Congress should make federal earmarks fully transparent so that a person in Albany, N.Y., can use the Internet to find out who’s getting special federal appropriations.

“The bottom line is this is taxpayer money and they want to know what is going on with it,” Gillibrand told reporters.

Earmarks are special instructions in congressional spending bills that direct money to specific recipients.

Gillibrand has partnered with Sen. Tom Coburn R-OK, and Sen. John McCain R-Ariz., to co-sponsor the Earmark Transparency Act that would set up a database for information on each federal funding request. According to Gillibrand, the legislation is supported by 24 senators.

Included in the database would be information on the amount of money initially requested by applicants and the amount that is approved in the final legislation if the earmark is passed.

The database would reveal whether organizations receiving earmarks are public companies or private non-profit or private for-profit entities.

House Democratic leaders recently banned budget earmarks to private industry.

“When you start doing something for transparency a lot of people will follow you though the doors, because they believe it is the public’s right to know,” said Gillibrand.

  1. JimJJr says:

    I agree that earmarks must be transparency but the current systems in New York and most other states is just this – we take taxpayers money and divide it all up for own personal interest and then their are those crooked politian taking kickbacks. Rules of ethics need to be updated to protect the consumer and public from our greedy evil politians who rob us everyday. JimJJr

  2. Phil says:

    Who is she trying to kid? The first thing we need to do is clean house in the Congress including Gilly and Chuckie.

  3. mo says:

    This is the kind of change in government we really need. Information is power.
    The White House showed how it can be done with where every dollar of the Federal Stimulus money is accounted for down to the street level of cities and towns. The technology is there to do this for all federal dollars. We need to start using it to make democracy as transparent as possible.
    As a small business that did get some stimulus money, I can attest that the additional reporting that businesses have to do is an extra burden at first like any other business task, but once you learn the ropes it’s just another end of quarter reconciliation along with the payroll taxes and other items.
    People need more ways they can use themselves to know how well their representatives are doing their jobs instead of getting all their information including opinionated slants from highly partisan sources.
    Gillibrand is really doing a great job. Look at her record and facts instead of the rants from talk radio jerks with obvious agendas. I hope she gets re-elected so she can continue on things she wants to do to help both constituents and New York State. We need more politicians like her.

  4. We can see you ripping us off Kirsten.

    Your all ready very(catch phrase please)transparent.

    We see right through your deceptions.

    This is just more of the same, another piece of drivel legislation.

    Who’s against transparency?

    We can see fine.
    Stop the deficit spending, can you see that?

    Was it clear enough?

    Whats the point in transparency when bills are thousands of pages of legalese?

    Your just tricking us again.

    Make the bills concise and comprehensible.
    That would be real transparency

    What your doing is just more self promoting misdirection.

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