Is doing away with earmarks a good idea?
Posted at 5:00 AM on November 17, 2010
by Eric Ringham
(42 Comments)
Filed under: Politics/Government, Transportation
Republicans in Washington have stepped up their campaign against earmarks, the process that allows members of Congress to direct funds to particular projects. The use and abuse of earmarks has generated controversy for years, involving projects that range from the Bridge to Nowhere in Alaska to the Central Corridor light rail line in the Twin Cities. Today's Question: Is doing away with earmarks a good idea?
Comments (42)
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They're earmarks when someone else gets them. When they're for me they're essential government spending!
It's our money. We want it back in the form of projects and job creation. If there needs to be reform, I think members of Congress should do a better job of policing themselves.
It is a small step in the right direction.
David,
He trolled, I bit, my apologies for moving off topic.
So many people are saying that since the amount of money saved from eliminating earmarks is small we should not do it. That's the problem with our deficit, we need to start small and cut in every part of the government. I have no problem with cutting the military, social security, medicare, medicaid, and welfare/unemployment. Those few things take up over 75% of the federal budget, but cutting those things are just not politically viable since too many people freak out when we cut any government program. We need to grow up and stop acting like children, everything needs to be cut and we will have to raise taxes once we get out of this recession (unemployment down to 7% or so). Here's the federal budget: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2010_spending_by_category.jpg
Clark is an instigator. Their objective is to steer intelligent conversation into emotional reaction, essentially distracting quality debate and replacing it with garble. They are littered across the blogways. They only want to draw attention to themselves. They revel in our anger and disorientation and should be ignored.
"High income, wealthy and happy that I get to keep more of my income, Thank you President Bush. Why don't all you socialists just relocate to France where you will be happy not working, earning government support and retiring at 60"
Good for you Clark. Hold onto that "chest of gold" all the way to the grave. And keep your fences and defenses high apparantly, because we're all out "to get your money". As for me I've always worked hard, have a high income also, but have COMPASSION for others and will also die happy someday; Albiet poor because others will benefit from my wealth.
If we do that, Ebenezer Clark, who will you hire to do your work for you?
I think ending earmarks is an appropriate thing to do.
Partisan politics have become so bad that we have trouble getting anything financial passed, so reducing what's on bills, the cost of bills, and the amount of money we're spending during a deficit with massive debt is important.
If politicians should agree on anything, it should be this. It's not morally ambiguous, it's not economically questionable, and most Americans seem to support it.
High income, wealthy and happy that I get to keep more of my income, Thank you President Bush. Why don't all you socialists just relocate to France where you will be happy not working, earning government support and retiring at 60.
Earmarks are like the Good Idea Fairy. All you need to do is take a giant flyswatter to them.
MPR gets funnier everyday with these questions. Earmarks...get rid of them...another Republican gimmick...well, the first earmark they should get rid of is their government-paid health care and get their own private insurance...next, they should take a huge pay cut...or better yet, volunteer their services...then they should make Rush Limbaugh come from behind the sanctity of his radio microphone and debate an intellectual black man (Michael Eric Dyson, Cornell West, even Rev. Al Sharpton or mayby Rev. Jeremiah Wright...oooh or Kanye West) because cowards always hit and run.
Again, let's see how many earmarks the Republicans and their newly elected co-horts and Tea Party members decide to push for. Let those who voted for some of these dunderheads see what they are really made of, like the freshman congressman, newly elected, saying one of the first things on his agenda is to repeal "Obamacare", and then asks when does he get his government-paid health insurance and why does he have to wait 28 days for his government-paid health insurance to become effective...what was he going to do about health insurance...and he's a doctor (anesthesiologist).
Objects in the mirror are closer than they seem.
What counts as a "good idea"?
It won't really reduce spending, because aside from being just 1% of the budget earmarks don't cause money to be spent so much as determine exactly where money already allotted to be spent actually goes.
Eliminating them might help end abuse of the practice but won't address issues like deficits or debt or excessive influence by a few politicians.
Clark - "When I see the lazy slobs living in tents in the park..."
You mean those lazy slobs like the ones who were laid off? Like those scientists who were proudly working next to me before business partners pulled out due to the recession? You may recall the recession was caused by dishonesty among investment bankers and the collapse of the housing market. It was not caused by the scientists working diligently down the bench from me. However they were the ones who lost their jobs, and there were none to be found for quite some time. I was looking too. Maybe you'll gain some perspective when your lazy butt is laid off through no fault of your own, Clark.
I believe banning earmarks IS a good idea. I agree that it will have an insignificant effect on the budget deficit. However, a positive effect it will have, and I have not yet heard this articulated by either politicians or pundits, is to change the focus of local voters. Rather than re-electing senators and representatives who “bring home the bacon” but do not act in the best interest of the Nation as a whole, perhaps the electorate will give more support to candidates who show better judgment with “big picture” issues.
Read the Declaration of Independence to understand the colonists issues with respect to the far reach of the King. Recall that the U.S. Constitution "limits" the role of the federal government. The question Americans do not ask and where politicians fail their constituency is asking the fundamental question, "Based upon the Constitution, what are the legitimate roles of government?" Where we fail as a nation is not recognizing that government, at all levels, cannot and should not be all things to all people. If there is a desire to reduce lobbyists and special interests and earmarks, limit the amount of money extracted from the Several States and sent to Washington D.C.
No. This is a flashy item that those in congress can use as a headline in a re-election campaign or on their taxpayer funded, self-serving legislative updates. Some earmarks are worthwhile, other are not. Eliminating all of them isn't the solution to the problem.
Banning earmarks will ultimately have little effect on spending. It is a gimmick to push the problem down the road. We should be getting used to this in MN, though. We've seen more than our share of state budgetary gimmicks to avoid real solutions for the past 8 years.
It's a start.
We have to stop this insatiable beast know as government or we will end up like Greece, England, Portugal, France and Ireland. FLAT BROKE!
I we can't hold tight on this, there is no hope.
Only about 1 percent of the federal budget is spent through earmarks. If you really want to address spending you have to reduce military funding, which is roughly 20 times as large. Now I see a group of Tea Partiers including Rep. Bachmann don't want on the committee that controls spending, which to me indicates they don't really want to fix the problem.
As the earmark focus seems to demonstrate, this is more about symbolism than solutions.
Clark, it's not the "wealth creators" I have a problem with, but the economic leaches who take out far more value than they put in. I'm thinking of predatory lenders and their ilk, and mercenary CEOs who wow and cow their boards to pay them huge sums by threatening to take their "talents" elsewhere. Does a health insurance CEO add tens of millions of dollars of value to the health care system? If not, why are they paid that much, and why should health care consumers tolerate it? The true "wealth creators" are the people who come up with good ideas and who sell goods or services that actually help people live better at fair prices-- doing well by doing good. The leeches are the ones who simply use their existing wealth to amass more, the economic extortionists who make money not by producing value but by shrewd management of intellectual property, anti-competitive business practices, and addicting customers to products that are bad for them and bad for the planet. Make no mistake, Clark, those leeches are extracting more undeserved wealth from you (unless you're one of them) than are the "lazy slobs" you were thinking of.
@Clark,
Ever been homeless? Ever wonder where your next meal is coming from? Ever sacrifice your own well-being for your child because of hunger, illness, lack of resources? Poverty-begets-poverty and if you don't work through programs that cost money to help, it only conintues. Why don't you set up a cardboard box for the weekend in Battle Creek Park and see how you do.
Compassion is what you lack, and Scroog should be your FIRST name.
No!
Directing federal funds for specific projects in the common good is fine as long as they are out in the open.
It is not acceptable to bury funding for pet projects in unrelated legislation late at night in a bill that will not be read by those that have to vote on the bill in the morning.
Steve the Cynic:
I have never worked for a poor person, have never borrowed money from a poor person. If you tax the wealth creators, what incentive is left to create jobs and prosperity? If it was not for the wealth creators in this country, you, I and most others would not have incomes.
Clark, if by "laxy slobs" you mean those overpaid business elites and Wall Street money-shufflers, who extract way more wealth from the economy than they actually contribute to the well-being of society, I'm with you on that.
Yes, at least for the time being, BUT unless this includes Letter Marks as well, it has no meaning at all; merely more political blather & smoke and mirrors. I would like to see simple, clearly written legislation that, 'we the people' could access. With all the earmarks the bills passed are impossible to read. Moby Dick would be easier.
Of course doing away with earmarks is a good idea. Anyone who says otherwise is motivated by apathy (who cares, it's too small to matter) or greed (how will we get our free government handouts?). It simply is not right - ethically - to attach pork to an unrelated bill hoping that no one will notice. Want money for light rail? Have our congressmen and -women submit a light rail bill (or infrastructure bill or whatever), debate it, and vote. The earmark is nothing more than a political tool for politicians to bring back the goodies so they get re-elected. Period. It ain't right, folks!
YES,YES,YES BECAUSE WE NEED TO SET PRIORITIES AND GET THINGS DONE!
Yes, cut earmarks, and all other federal expenses. When I see the lazy slobs living in tents in the park, I know our elected reps mean business.
"This democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those willing to work and give to those who are not" Thomas Jefferson
Republicans are discussing within their party and in the press how best to address the problem of earmarks. Earmarks are those gifts to special interests and districts that are easy to ridicule when taken in isolation (think of the infamous bridge to nowhere), but that can be hard to find in the thousands of pages of bills that carry them.
The press and the politicians seem to focus on the numbers used by politicians to make points with their voters, and often seem willing to repeat the bad numbers used in that political posturing. A little research shows that the current numbers are in the $18B to $20B range per year, an amount that is much less than usually reported. Out of a $3,500B dollar budget, this hardly seems worth the trouble. But it is not the size of the earmarks that is the problem, rather, it is the leveraging of those little trades for big power that is the problem. Earmarks are sometimes described as a feedback system where Representative A buys Representative B using taxpayer money. Representative B then reciprocates by buying Representative A, also using taxpayer money. And each then goes home and brags to their voters that they brought home the bacon for their district, having brought that bacon back to the very people who sent it, after a little laundering and after skimming off some for administrative overhead.
While earmarks are small and easily targeted, the US tax code itself is a veritable pork barrel of special interests getting special treatment, paid for courtesy of the same people (you, the taxpayer). Weighing in at perhaps 33,000 pages of IRS regulations reinforced and guided by perhaps 3,400 pages of government code as written by Congress, the rules are a byzantine labyrinth of special treats. The very fact that two honest people from two sides of the aisle can come to the table with assurances from their staffs that the codes are in fact fair (and unfair) is a strong indicator that the codes are not fair. The first step in any dialog ought to include a dramatic simplification of the tax code. Remove all deductions and then talk about how to set the brackets and tax rates to make the tax codes appropriately progressive.
Just as earmarks are most insidious for their ability to be leveraged to change policies far more important that the little amount they actually convey, so is the tax code insidious for its ability to bend and hide the way wealth is moved through the body politic.
Earmarks are, to me, some of the ultimate political footballs. It's true that they are a small portion of the budget; it's also true and that disingenuous political posturing about eliminating earmarks is a no-brainer for anyone in Congress. It's true that earmarks are often attached to unrelated bills, and that they often include things like the "bridge to nowhere." It's also true that they do often contain useful and needed projects; projects that may not be funded if not through federal budgeting.
What's needed is a transparent way to get the things done that need to be done, and try to get a lid on waste. Defining waste is another problem, as Steve the Cynic pointed out. One constituency's waste is another constituency's vitally needed infrastructure project.
What is much more important is that our Congress people and Senators have to put aside the more polarizing aspects of their ideologies for a bit and work together for some realistic, doable solutions to the problems we have now. The time for accounting tricks and putting off hard choices is over, and has been for some time. I don't know if this is even feasible in these days. It will require a lot of good data and unbiased analysis to get to the level of information needed to make the best decisions for dealing with these huge and complex problems. It's very difficult for either side to consider using any rational basis for decisions, though, when they are all driven purely by ideology in an atmosphere of cutthroat political competition.
So, "doing away with earmarks" is a visible solution, but it only solves a small piece of the deficit problem and will no doubt soon be replaced by some other mechanism for funding projects.
Yes!
While those for the earmark status quo claim that the amounts spent are relatively small, earmarks serve as a lever to prompt huge spending increases. (Witness the huge and mysterious health care bill.) Reid/Pelosi, et al, were able to pass this bill by doling out favors - using our money. ("Trust us. Pass it and see what's in it.")
Earmarks allow politicians to stay in office by stealing money from other states for their own constituents - and they call that good government! This attitude is bringing our country to its knees. It's time for major reform.
Assuming money in earmarks is misspent (quite the assumption), the savings to the federal government from eliminating all of them are insignificant. It is, however, a great way to divert the public's attention from things that do matter (e.g. trillions spent on war, including especially Iraq); this technique is very popular with dishonest demagogues, and discouragingly effective with all too many voters. Talk radio is an apparently disorganized effort to use the big lie technique, and it succeeded in taking over many legislative seats, including national seats. This was aided substantially by the Supreme Court announcing in Citizens United that synthetic persons (corporations) have all the free speech rights of natural persons (who were, incidentally, the only ones covered by the original intent and wording of the founders of the country).
Yes.
To those like Linda (posted @ 7:27) who wonder about "Bush burning up the surplus", please take note Congress appropriates, not the President. The Dems took control of Congressl following the 2006 election. When did spending and public confidence start to spiral downward? Hmmm.
Some earmark projects are likely of sufficient merit to warrant support, so let them pass the collective judgment of Congress, not be seen as "gifts" by Representative X to ensure re-election. Look also to the quantity of earmarks since 2007 and the $ amount. While the $ amount is small by Washington's inflated standards, the principles of transparency and fiscal responsibility are primary. We're talking about principles here.
While there has been abuse, and will continue to be abuse, the process of congress funding specific projects is a big reason why the representatives are there. If the earmark process disappears from open legislation, it will still happen, but be accessible to even fewer members, and will happen even deeper in the dark.
There's no magic bullet to get rid of wasteful government spending. Whoever winds up making decisions about where government money goes, whether elected lawmakers or or executive branch political appointees, is going to use that power to curry favor with some constituency. That, together with the lack of consensus about what's wasteful (one person's waste is another's essential program), means that this issue will keep coming back until homo sapiens goes extinct.
I think it is a good thing for our elected officials to bring home financial support for things our state needs. I think people will find the Republican agenda a lot harder to live with than they expected when they voted. Where was all this concern when Mr. Bush was burning up the surplus? No one answers that for me.
Yes, earmarks have been misused over the years. The logic that members of Congress are closer to the people and know what projects need to be addressed in their districts is correct in theory but analysis of earmark spending has shown that the districts of the most powerful members of Congress have the most government money spent within their districts. This does take power away from the legislative branch and gives it to the executive branch but that is preferable to having "The Bridge to Nowhere" type projects being passed to bring government spending back to home districts.
I think so. It will force projects to be in the spotlight and be addressed as to whether or not it is a good spending decision.
Isn't that what we elect them to do? Bring home federal dollars for local projects?
Michele Bachmann doesn't seem to think so.
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