Administration

Club for Growth comes out against Trump proposal to bring back earmarks

by Rebecca Savransky

Club for Growth, a top conservative group, on Tuesday came out against President Trump’s call for Congress to consider bringing back earmarks.

“If Republicans bring back earmarks, then it virtually guarantees that they will lose the House,” Club for Growth President David McIntosh said in a statement.

“Bringing back earmarks is the antithesis of draining the swamp. Earmarks will only benefit the special interests that grow government at the expense of working men and women.”

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Trump said Tuesday that Congress should consider bringing back earmarks to improve bipartisanship and pass more legislation.

“Maybe we should think about it,” Trump told a group of roughly two dozen lawmakers at the White House.
 
“Maybe all of you should think about going back to a form of earmarks. You should do it.”
 
He said the “levels of hatred” among Republicans and Democrats are “out of control” and that earmarks could help solve it.
 
Former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) banned earmarks, which have been derided as pork-barrel spending, after Republicans retook the House in 2010.
 

But House Republicans are debating whether to bring back earmarks, even as some blast them as a symbol of the Washington establishment that Trump campaigned against.

Administration