Who wouldn’t want a building named after them? If you’re a top Democrat Member of Congress named Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-NY), not only do you get one, you get to earmark taxpayer dollars to spend on it.
 
In July, Rep. Rangel slipped into a spending bill an earmark worth $2 million for the “Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service” in New York. Promotional materials boasted of its planned location in a “magnificent Harlem limestone townhouse.” Tax dollars would go to construct a “well-furnished office for Congressman Rangel” and a “Rangel Library.” One news organization wondered “Is Rangel’s ‘Monument to Me’ Worth It?”
 
Republican Congressman John Campbell of California asked Mr. Rangel if he thought it was unseemly to earmark public money for a building named after one’s self. Rep. Rangel approved of his own earmark before hypocritically admitting to Rep. Campbell: “I would have a problem if you did it.”

House Republicans believe EVERY earmark should be debatable on the House floor, no matter whether it appears in a policy bill like Rep. John Murtha’s $39 million “boondoggle” earmark or in a spending bill like Rep. Rangel’s “Monument to Me” did. Democrats want to keep them secret.
 
House Republicans are circulating a petition on the House Floor that would force Speaker Nancy Pelosi to allow all earmarks to be debated and publicly scrutinized. So far, 196 Republicans have signed it. The petition requires 218 signatures; it will not succeed without the support of fiscally responsible Democrats. To date, no Democrat has signed it.