Making fun of earmarked Congressional spending is easy, feel-good entertainment. In this regard Sen. John McCain‘s Twitter feed, in which he reels off outrageous examples of pork-barrel spending (we especially liked “$300,000 for Texas A&M for ‘Texas Height Modernization’“) is a laugh factory. But is the war on pork a distraction from a larger problem? In 2008, Congress earmarked $17.2 billion for special projects. That amounts to less than one half of one percent of all Federal spending last year. The figure is less than NASA’s 2008 budget ($17.3 billion) and less than half of the $35 billion the country spent on foreign aid last year (is there a “Finland Height Modernization” program?). A recent paper found almost no correlation between the amount of pork in a given year and the size of that year’s deficit. The authors conclude: “While increasing levels of pork may be symptomatic of a larger government spending problem, they are not the underlying cause.” [%comments]
Do Earmarks Matter?
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Earmarks don’t create any spending. The money has already been authorized. The earmarks just dictate how it’s spent. So it’s the Congressperson’s job to earmark it. If I don’t earmark it for my district, someone else will for theirs. If no one does, then it goes in the hands of the executive, which is not the solution. That’s how it works. The solution is not to end earmarks, but to cut down on authorized spending in the first place. Ending earmarks won’t cut the deficit one bit.
Earmarks are an entertaining whipping boy for those who wish to emphasize the inefficiency of government. In some cases this ridicule is justified, but of greater importance is the fact that earmark spending facilitates legislative compromise. In an era when the yawning partisan divide threatens any effort to govern down the middle, earmarks serve an important role in promoting practical rather than ideological governance.
It’s not the amount that is the problem, it’s the system that allows lawmakers to direct money to a specific pet project instead of letting the agency in question decide how to spend its own budget.
Earmarks are a symbol of what is wrong with our government. The kind of thinking that a few billion dollars aren’t important shocks most Americans., and sneaking programs into legislation that a good part of the population would never vote for is unethical. Unfortunately, no matter how good a government program is, someone in Congress finds a way to distort it’s purpose.
Suppose you knew your uncle would pay for the family vacation if you left it out of your budget. Wouldn’t you be tempted to underfund vacations and fund other things instead?
It’s naive to think that agencies are at the whim of Congress and don’t know how to play these games.
I agree with everyone above that we ought to drastically cut earmarks for states and districts in which I do not reside….
I agree with those that pork is symptom rather than the disease. The real problem, I think, is that the members of congress have abdicated their duty to do what is best for the country and have instead agreed to use tax monies to fund their own re-election campaigns. If the projects that are funded are worthwhile they should be able to withstand the scrutiny of the congress and funding should be provided in a bill passed on its own merits.
Given the dollars presented in the original post, I’m having a beautiful day-dream: end earmarks, double NASA’s budget, and enjoy the ripples from innovations that enhance life here on earth.