A note by Maynard
Earmarks have been in the news lately. Incoming Republicans speak of banning them. We’ve heard this talk before, as earmarks have gone in and out of focus and favor. Nobody admits to liking them, but somehow they keep coming back.
Why the fixation on earmarks? They account for maybe half of one percent of the Federal budget. Eliminating earmarks won’t put a dent in the deficit — or so goes one argument. But is that the whole story?
Here’s Wikipedia’s summary definition of “earmark“:
In United States politics, an earmark is a legislative (especially congressional) provision that directs approved funds to be spent on specific projects, or that directs specific exemptions from taxes or mandated fees.
That sounds benign enough. However, an alternative critical explanation has more to say:
An earmark is an item that is inserted into a bill to direct funds to a specific project or recipient without any public hearing or review. One of the problems is that there is no transparency or accountability in the system.
U.S. Congressional members can secure hundreds of millions of dollars of funding for a project without subjecting it to debate by their colleagues in the Congress, or to the scrutiny and oversight of the public. Because earmarks are hard to identify, some members use them to secretly award their biggest campaign contributors or exchange them for bribes. The secrecy of the earmarking process invites unethical and corrupt behavior, where lobbyists and contractors and well-connected individuals give campaign contributions to legislators in return for federal funding.
Generally the more powerful members of the U.S. Congress get more earmarks. Members of the Appropriations Committees in the House and Senate are in the best position to secure earmarks. They can insert them into spending bills during closed committee meetings, with no public scrutiny. Earmarks are also offered to members to entice them to vote for a bill they otherwise might not vote for.
Okay, earmarks are pork, they’re slush, they’re quiet payoffs — but are they important? Is this discussion worth having, or is it just a diversion from our real problems?
Read the last sentence of that quoted block again: Earmarks are also offered to members to entice them to vote for a bill they otherwise might not vote for. Maybe that’s the crux of the matter.
Suppose there’s a hideous law working its way through Congress. It couldn’t pass on its own merit. So the advocates toss in earmarks. Congressmen are incentivized to acquiesce to toxic legislation in exchange for a payoff to their district.
Do you recall how Obama’s health care bill was pushed through Congress? Even the Democrats knew it was bad law. So out came the earmarks. You may remember some of the big ones, such as the “Cornhusker Kickback” or the “Louisiana Purchase”. If you want more sordid details, Michelle Malkin wrote about these and other payoffs here and here.
That’s how laws get passed. And in the end, powerful lawmakers proudly bring home the bacon while the country as a whole goes down the tubes.
You see the problem. It’s not that the earmarks in themselves broke the bank. It’s that legislators are systematically rewarded for abandoning their duty to the nation. Earmarks play a significant role in enabling the Washington culture of dysfunction and corruption.
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The real crux of the matter is where their duty lies. Is it to their state constituents who vote for them or is it to the nation? A third part is left out of the calculus above as well.. duty to their party. If they bring back an earmark that is good for their state, is that really bad for the nation as a whole, considering the states make up the nation? All three of these ‘duties’ contend to give the rep a bigger, badder voice in congress and to retain the resources necessary to win an election next time round. These contentions are mediated by the reps overriding duty, and that is to him/her self.
Eliminating earmarks will save some money … maybe, but more likely, they will find a way around earmarks or create a different kind of legislation that will, in essence, be the same cat of a different stripe.They will do whatever they want to do, as we have seen over the last 2 years.
The antidote has already been injected. The answer lies not in changing ‘the system’ or changing ‘the establishment’ or even changing the representatives themselves… the antidote is us. The fact that I am commenting on a blog site at 12:30 on a Saturday night and you are reading this right now is what fixes the problem. The more we stay engaged, the more we make clear what is acceptable and what is not from our reps, the more educated we become is what will stop the insanity. The biggest threat is not Washington, the biggest threat is you and me walking away out of frustration or apathy.
You’re noting that the problems we face are fundamentally spiritual, rather than a detail of rules. And I agree with that as far as it goes, although it’s clearly a problem when the rules reward bad behavior. If the playing field is tilted sharply to reward those who disregard the national interest, then the nation will lose out in the long run.
But even when the rules favor us, we seem to lose out. So much of what Washington does far exceeds the powers granted it by the Constitution (Obamacare being the latest egregious example). How do they get away with this? If the majority of the nation doesn’t see a terrifying problem here…well, I guess that’s our problem. I’m not talking about an “I don’t like it” whine; we need to see the “This is tyranny!” reaction.
Likewise, of course I agree that we’ve got to stay on top of these things, although I know at least in my case I’m at a disadvantage, in that I find politics generally repulsive, and I’m also a naive amateur. Yeah, the monsters have got to be stopped, but the devil is in the details. Only the rats know how to navigate these mazes, and the rats are unreliable at best. It’s a problem.
“We The People” need to stay involved in the political process. I have often said to anyone who would listen, ” the only way to change the attitude in Washington D.C. is to have 3 out 4 registered voters go to the polls in a National election. The insiders would then realize that we are paying attention.” My own personal opinion on why the Tea Party is so maligned by the Political Elite is that “We The People” are now becoming involved and that scares the daylights out of them. The Political Elite have been put on notice that the Electorate is finally paying attention.
I have a simple definition for earmarks: bribes. Unfortunately this kind of activity was even around with our Founders and I fear it will always be here. What we need to focus on is supporting our representatives that do not use earmarks or accept them. Unlike Sen. John Kyl who championed banning earmarks and then a couple days later accepted his $200 million one.
I have LOOOONG advocated recruiting some middle-class mothers who are running a household on a factory workers salary and put them in charge of the federal budget.
Such mothers know that when you’re $200K in debt, you don’t buy a $30K new car or take a $2K vacation in Hawaii.
More importantly, such mothers know that you don’t spend $10 in McDonalds or spend $10 going to the movies. Instead, you eat at home and rent $1 Red Box movie, then put an extra $19 on paying off the principle.
So, CONgress, instead of wasting $2 million on a park someplace, let’s buy $2 million worth of debt back from China. Let’s make the USA for Americans again!
What they’ll do is redefine earmarks. None other than Michelle Bachmann—
Bachmann: Transportation projects shouldn’t be earmarks
It’s true not all earmarks are pork. Earmarks specify where general allocation funds will be spent. Leave it to politicians to turn the system into bribery and banditry. Earmarks should never be tucked inside other legislation. They should be identified in standalone legislation and clearly associated with their sponsors. They have to be projects defendable within the general budget allocation such as Department of Transportation funds. Teapot museums and peanut festivals have nothing to do with the national budget. The local folks will have to raise the money themselves for these kinds of projects.
two words- or is it one? i don’t recall even though my company benefited enormously from it- the Big Dig, the largest most corrupt earmark and engineering boondoggle in known human history.( or was teddy kennedy around when the pyramids were being built? seems like it.)
every few years or so they would drag a crook through the legal system in MA- usually someone in the construction field with a colorful nickname like ” The Cheese Man”- and lightly spank them for stealing tax payer monies associated with the biggest pork barrel of dough ever, benefiting, mostly, the unions and of course politicians and gangsters, the distinctions between the two having disappeared. i am not sure if the main culprit Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff has paid back any of the money they were ordered to – with no consequences. if you recall their plans cost millions of dollars for being faulty( they ignored the existence of the Boston Garden/Fleet Center causing crazy sick expensive revisions ). it was proved that they cooked the books to make the whole mess appear to be coming in on budget( it was near double the projected costs, now 4 times that projected with all the problems) and on time . the tunnel leaked like a sieve the minute it was opened for traffic, eventually killing a woman. every politician in the state had some useless road cone of a relative that was given a no show job on the project.
and Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff still was given lucrative contracts with the government after all their screw ups and , frankly, prosecutable crimes were made public knowledge. even after they finally admitted blame and agreed to fork back over some of their loot- forced to because their flawed fraud of a project killed someone. and i think that’s the only reason they got somewhat spanked: it was impossible to ignore the death of a citizen not associated with the project.
and for the record traffic in boston is worse than it has ever been. the big dig tunnel is often closed and the roads around it are in critical disrepair due to the fact that the big dig sucked up all the states transportation funds. as barney frank quipped in a rare moment of financial genius, “Wouldn’t it be cheaper to raise the city than depress the artery?” (the zakim bridge is however all sorts of awesome- if you ever get through the tunnel in a reasonable time frame as to be not too pissed off to enjoy it.)
examining the big dig points to the main problem with transportation earmarks in particular-the government attaches no value to money it has the right to force out of citizens under threat of penalty. the state itself found wrong doing and fraud mid project and dragged its feet over any sort of punishment on most of the serious wrong doers, picking off the smaller companies that had tiny bits of the blame. screw up a government project and the state lathers you with more tax money and most importantly they do not seriously prosecute you for anything as long as you keep petting the politicians the right way. if someone built a house for a private individual and the roof fell in on them the first day in the house, they’d sue and try to collect. surely you wouldn’t use the same company to rebuild the roof. the government does no such thing. if these projects were privatized, a company could not have afforded to operate the way the big dig was ‘over seen’ by the state of MA.
and isn’t that the whole point? give the government money and oversight of that money with no restrictions they can’t weasel their way around, control of the courts and processes that could stop any fraud and it equals no accountability . it’s drunk sailor on leave and on crack time. the government cannot and will not be responsible with money it can gin up at the will of congress to inflict more taxes on the population. since neither party is ever at all serious about becoming financially responsible, their control over the amount of taxes they collect and spend must be severely curbed.
reagan, by the way, vetoed the big dig. congress over rode his veto.