Tim Penny Talks to Legislators via Radio Program

Those who can tune into KOWZ radio (1170 AM — no internet site) broadcasting from Waseca, Minnesota, are in for a treat the second and fourth Friday mornings each month with Tim Penny's radio show, "It's Your Call," broadcast starting at 9:00 a.m. On the second Friday morning Penny interviews a range of individuals, but on the fourth Friday he plans to have Sen. Norm Coleman and Rep. Tim Walz on a regular basis.

On the Jan. 26 show much of the discussion with the legislators dealt with the Iraq deployment and how it has affected Minnesota members of the Army Reserve and National Guard. Coleman also addressed stem cell research and Walz congressional ethics reform.

Penny quizzed Walz on whether the Democratic controlled Congress was going far enough in terms of limiting earmarks. Walz termed the President's call in the State of the Union address for reducing congressional earmarks by 50% "ironic" since those earmarks have grown exponentially during his six years in office — up to 10,000 in 2006. Cutting them in half, Walz said, only brought them down to 5,000, which Penny noted was ten times the number in 1994, when he served his last year in Congress.

Walz advocates tagging each earmark with the sponsor's name, which he says will limit earmarks as members of congress will have to justify their legislative requests. Penny would like to see earmark limitations go further.