By Monisha Bansal - CNSNews.com Staff Writer(CNSNews.com) - Six months after naming Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.)
The KKK guy?
as "porker of the month," a taxpayer watchdog Wednesday praised the incoming chairman of the Senate appropriations committee, as well as his House counterpart, for pledging to do away with congressional earmarks for the rest of the current fiscal year.
Congratulating Byrd and Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.) for their stance, Citizens Against Government Waste said the Democratic leadership had stepped up where Republicans did not.
"Together with the promise to forgo next year's congressional pay raise, Democrats are taking important steps toward changing business-as-usual in Washington," the advocacy group said in a statement, hailing the decision by the incoming committee chairmen to pass a "continuing resolution."
"What [the continuing resolution is] going to do is fund the government for the appropriations bills that were not passed by Congress," explained David Williams, vice president of policy for Citizens Against Government Waste.
"Homeland security and defense appropriations bills were passed, but everything else wasn't, so basically the continuing resolution just keeps the government operating," he said.
