With the earmark debate seeming to bubble up again , how can any politician defend them? Enough of them do that no legislation banning then can get anywhere. Can someone tell me what is good about them and give me a coherent reason why they shouldn’t be done away with?
Earmarks are bad…unless they are earmarks for you then they are good.
Really, this is the way of it. No one can really defend them but all congresscritters can benefit from them by being able to get some tidbits for favored constituents. So, everyone else’s earmarks suck but if you want yours you need to give them theirs.
In the scheme of things they are a drop in the federal budget so banning them is more feel-good rhetoric than anything that will solve anything. Still, they are odious so getting rid of them would be great.
Indeed what is really needed is a line-item veto. Unfortunately when that was given to Bill Clinton it was challenged and the courts threw it out so no line-item veto for the President. That’d be the easiest way to kill earmarks though.
People often confuse earmarks with pork. Pork is “unnecessary spending”. Earmarks are just the directing of already approved spending to a particular locale. The money is going to be spent, it’s just a matter of who decides where.
From wikipedia:
I’ve been searching for the last 15 minutes for a post from an earlier thread on this subject, where a non-USA doper came into the discussion to ask (paraphrased) “Do you really want to give money to your executive branch without telling it what to spend the money on?”
Like the Bridge to Nowhere money already spent non-pork?
Or Alaska getting around 3x as much money as Arizona despite Alaska having (roughly) 11% of the population of Arizona?
That kind of non-pork, money is already spent money?
I don’t know. Obviously we’re not going to agree on what “unnecessary spending” is. Hence the quotation marks. But it’s not clear to me that the BtN was an earmark, or just plain ol’ pork.
There’s going to be some overlap, especially since definitions are going to vary, but the point remains that not all earmarks are pork. Often the money really does have to to be spent, and some lucky Congresscritter is going to get that money for his or her district.
Even flat-out pork is deeply enshrined in our system of government. If you want to get rid of pork, then you need to get rid of the federal system of government, with legislators representing specific states. It’s the job of, say, a senator for Alaska to represent the best interests of Alaskans. If Stevens hadn’t asked for the money for the Bridge to Nowhere, he wouldn’t have been doing his job.
If anyone’s to blame, it’s not legislators asking for pork for their home states; it’s legislators agreeing to everyone else’s requests for pork. The Bridge should not have been stopped by Stevens not asking for it, but by 98 other senators telling him to stuff it.
Agreed but if they all do that then no one gets anything. So it becomes a quid pro quo. You support my bridge to nowhere and I’ll support your mohair support program (and yeah, there is such a thing…as P. J. O’Rourke once mentioned it must be due to the US almost collapsing due to wild swings in the price of mohair).
Sure, one can point out bad earmarks. One can point out bad things in the budget not added by Congress.
What do you think of the Predator unmanned aerial vehicle? Or aircraft carriers? Are those a good or bad use of taxpayer dollars?
Earmarks are absolutely essential in our form of government and one of the key components of checks and balances that maintain the balance of power between the legislature and the executive.
It is the legislature’s power, right, and duty to decide how to raise money and what to spend it on. Earmarks tell the executive what to spend it on. If you ban earmarks, then you’re essentially disbalancing the constitutional system by taking away the legislature’s power to limit the executive’s discretionary spending.
We could go round-and-round all day citing and defending what we consider good/bad spending.
My main complaint is it seems a lot of this stuff ends up as a rider on another bill that has nothing to do with it. So (made up example) the bridge to nowhere gets attached to a bill to provide relief for hurricane victims. The president, with no line-item veto, has to take all or nothing. Wanting to provide help to victims it gets passed.
What I’d like to see is an up/down vote on such earmarks. Let every congresscritter go on record supporting the bridge to nowhere as opposed to them supporting hurricane relief which happens to have a provision for a bridge to nowhere.
We’d likely still see shit we don’t like but at least our representatives could be called to account for their vote.
Well, you’re just factually wrong. The Bridge to Nowhere was originally funded as part of a 2006 appropriations bill which included transportation funding, among other things. There was an up-or-down vote on this particular item, and those who wanted to strip it out, lost. It was later that the bridge got axed.
So, Congress followed the procedure you wanted, but just didn’t arrive at the outcome that was preferable. It is impossible to vote on every single provision of every single bill. Nothing would ever get passed, because there’s not enough time in the day to vote on everything. Those who oppose earmarks are generally free to offer amendments to strike them out, of course.
In any case, the overwhelming number of earmarks occur in the annual appropriations bills that fund different government departments, or in the transportation bill that’s passed every six years or so. The overwhelming majority of earmarks are proposed to bills that are consistent with the purpose of the earmark.
Who would you rather decide how to spend money your hard-earned tax dollars? Some know-nothing bureaucrat working in an ivory tower in Washington, or your local, real American, voted by the people, legislator?
An earmark is just a way to allocate money that is already appropriated.
It was both. The pork is the wildly inflated transportation money for the whole state, the earmark was that X amount be spent on that bridge. After all the outcry the earmark was rescinded, but the state still got the same amount of money. Without the earmark, they can spend it however they like.
You’d be right if I hadn’t said “made up example” (it’s right in the text you quoted).
To be clear I’d like an earmark to get a distinct vote of its own. Wishful thinking I know but a guy can wish. Let the congresscritter make a case that the earmark makes sense.
No, you’re factually wrong in any case. The overwhelming number of earmarks are in bills related to the purpose of the bill. It’s not even close. You are simply wrong on making that assertion, whether you illustrate it with a hypothetical or not.
Most, not all, are.
And congress is directing agencies to spend money in a specific fashion rather than letting the agency do their job and make their own priorities. If a congresscritter wants a bridge in their state then specifically get congress to approve funds for that bridge.
There are plenty of patently stupid earmarks (e.g. the one for Barrack’s Row…a wealthy neighborhood that got a few million to improve property values).
I would like to see a mechanism to get congresscritters to justify their earmarks. Make them stand up there and make a case for millions to beautify a wealthy Washington D.C. neighborhood.
To me this goes beyond the actual amounts (which I already admitted are overall not much in the scheme of things). It is (often) a type of legalized corruption allowing congresscritters to reward favored constituents or, as it seems with Barrack’s Row, line their own pocket.
I think you messed something up in that last sentence. An earmark is specifically approving funds for that purpose. But in any case, you seem to be implying that it is an agencys job to determine what funding should go to what project. Wrong again. The Constitution says that job is ultimately up to Congress. Agencies prepare budget proposals, which are sent in the name of the President to Congress for their review and approval or disapproval. To say that making priorities in spending funds is the prerogative of agencies, and not Congress, is to completely turn the constitutional powers of each branch on its head. If that is what you want, then you need to propose a constitutional amendment.
And in your first sentence, you still seem not to be ready to admit that the vast majority of earmarks are contained in the proper bill. It isn’t just most, it is almost all.
And do you think there are good earmarks too?
Earmarks are a kind of barter system too. When you need a guys vote to get a piece of legislation you want passed, sometimes you allow an earmark specific to his district. It often has nothing to do with the bill. But if it gets his vote, you push it.
Earmarks are a tiny piece of the budget. It is a lot of noise about very little.
It sounds like what everyone here opposes is not earmarks (federal spending targeting projects in particular congressional districts) but rather the attachment of these earmarks to unrelated pieces of legislation.