Walking the Walk

Score one for the good guys! Pressed by the conservative Republican Study Committee, and after gauging the mood of their base back home, Republicans look to be back on the fiscal good governance track for the first time in years! Earlier post here. Bob Novak:

Though obscured by the complexities of legislation, reformers trying to rein in congressional spending excesses scored signal victories in the House and Senate in the same hour late Thursday afternoon.

In the process, chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations committees suffered humiliating defeats. In the House, Chairman Jerry Lewis bowed to Republican leaders to reform runaway earmark spending. In the Senate, Chairman Thad Cochran lost an effort to stop Sen. Tom Coburn's crusade against earmarks.

Terrified by possible loss of their majorities in November, Republicans in Congress may have turned a corner in casting off the tyranny of the appropriators over the spending process. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert exerted his will, and newly installed Majority Leader John Boehner registered his first triumph. In scoring his first floor victory over an earmark, Coburn showed he is more than a nuisance freshman senator and, allied with Sen. John McCain, a force to be reckoned with.....

On Thursday, Coburn proposed to eliminate $15 million for "seafood promotion strategy." McCain told the Senate: "Let me save the American taxpayers $125 million right now by telling all Americans now to eat seafood. Eat seafood. It is good for you."

Even the New York Times noticed, after the measure won by a bipartisan 51-44:

"We won," said a slightly dazed Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who has been swimming upstream for years in his efforts to eliminate pet projects from legislation. "It's a first."

Well, there's more to be done, nobody's walking on water yet, but at least Republicans in Congress are not just talking the talk, they're walking the walk on earmark reform.

UPDATE: Here's another good vote, good sign that new House majority leader John Boehner is butting heads and taking charge on reform. WSJ editorial, "Hog Tied":

The House proceeded to vote 216-207 for budget rule changes that for the first time in many years limit the power of the College of Cardinals who run Appropriations to pass out tax dollars. The changes include reforms that should help repel some of the worst spending abuses, in particular the proliferation of Member-supported earmarks -- 2,600 in the 2006 Defense Appropriations bill alone and 6,371 in last year's highway bill -- that have been such a GOP embarrassment, such as Alaska's famous "Bridge to Nowhere."

Jeff Flake of Arizona, a lead sponsor of the earmark reform, says a major goal is transparency. From now on Members of Congress will have to put their John Hancocks next to the slabs of bacon they slip into big spending bills. Another reform will force up or down votes in the House on line-item pork projects if they are added during conference negotiations. The Nielsen ratings for CSPAN are going to explode. OK, maybe not, but it's a start.