RYAN SLAMS BRAKES ON VOTE TO BRING BACK EARMARKS
House Speaker Paul Ryan successfully lobbied his Republican colleagues Wednesday to postpone a vote on a proposal to bring back earmarks. "We just had a 'drain the swamp' election," Ryan told members, according to a GOP source in the room. "Let's not just turn around and bring back earmarks two weeks later." House GOP members applauded and agreed to put off the issue until the first quarter of 2017, when they have more time to have detailed plan to oversee spending bill talks. Earlier Wednesday, House Republicans appeared to be ignoring President-elect Donald Trump's call to reform Washington when they scheduled the vote on whether to overturn their own ban on earmarks -- billions of dollars for pet projects tucked into spending bills.