Of all the weird notions to pass through Washington in recent years, surely the hardest to explain was the notion that earmark disclosure would cut down on the number of earmarked projects. Members of congress insert earmarks in order to get credit for earmarking, so it should have been entirely predictable that more disclosure leads to more earmarks. After all, what member of congress wants it to be public knowledge that he's in the bottom 20 quintile in terms of brining home the bacon? That's an idea issue to add on to any general election or primary challenge -- Rep. So-And-So is lazy and out of touch with his district.
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Earmarks: People Like 'Em
05 Aug 2007 12:01 pm
Comments (19)
Matt once again displays the fallibility of theoretical insight versus real-world experience. Most earmarks are made to benefit powerful campaign contributors, not the general population of the district. My hope is that as the earmarks become known, the population of the district will say, "Hey, why are you benefiting fat-cat John Doe? Why aren't you spending that money on something that benefits the entire district, huh?"
And on a purely real-world note, if politicians really wanted their electorates to know about their earmarks, don't you think they would publicize them? If only there were some means to do so--say, free US mail....
Goyishe kopf, Matt.
Transparency is a good thing for its own sake, sure. But there's no reason to think that it would reduce earmarks.
But then we have to ask why there was ever a lack of transparency.
Most earmarks are made to benefit powerful campaign contributors, not the general population of the district.
Got a cite? Congressional work in general (eg., the tax code, regulatory policy, etc.) obviously tends to be shaped by the rich and powerful. But the article, at least, certainly gives the impression that earmarks are mostly about generating goodwill among ordinary voters back home in the district.
My hope is that as the earmarks become known, the population of the district will say, "Hey, why are you benefiting fat-cat John Doe? Why aren't you spending that money on something that benefits the entire district, huh?"
If ordinary voters ain't pissed off about how the tax code helps the rich to their detriment, or about the fact that they live in the only rich country that doesn't guarantee them health insurance -- in other words, if they're not really pissed off about the big things -- it's not clear why they'd lose any sleep about a practice that affects less than 1% of federal spending. That said, I'm a big fan of disclosure requirements. They're simply the right thing to do. What they're not, however, are very effective agents of change in a country where most people don't even bother to vote (much follow the issues in depth).
Yeah, all that money for the "bridge to nowhere" made people ecstatic. Next time you want to claim that money spent in Iraq should have gone to (insert pet liberal project here) instead, look in a mirror and remind yourself that earmarks are good.
James is right.
I'm not shocked by how quickly the democratic congress critters dumped the whole "culture of corruption" after they seized power but watching the plebes cover their ass for them is nauseating.
I live about 7 blocks from my Congressman. I have voted for him in every election, donated money to his campaigns and have a nodding acquaintance with his wife. And yet I've never been offered a single ear-mark. In the immortal words of Pap Finn: "Call this a govment?"
Yeah, James would have an awesome point, if the amount of money being spent in Iraq didn't dwarf the total amount of earmarks in the budget by numerous orders of magnitude. "Unless you complain about the $500,000 being spent to study cow flatulence, you can't complain about the trillion dollars being spent in Iraq!" Yeah, great point.
I think the idea was not that it would really reduce earmarks, but it would reduce abuse of earmarks for the personal enrichment of friends and family of congressmen and, especially, political donors.
The other kind of earmark - that's just good old fashioned horse-trading!
What would almost be a better idea for earmark reform would be to establish an independent non-partisan governmental outfit to collect pro-and-con input from constituents , and include some summary of the feedback together with each of the earmarks. This would distinguish the stupid "I'm-blatantly-helping-this-personal-friend-and-campaign-contributor" earmarks from the stupid "I'm-not-sure-why-but-my-constituents-seem-to-want-this-idea" earmarks. Presumably, even for the questionable earmarks, the first line of defense for the politician in question is to argue that they actually fall into the second category rather than the first.
Can someone explain the details of earmarking? Like, can a member of congress get literally any amount of money they want for their constituents, or is there some kind of a gentleman's agreement of what's generally considered an "appropriate" amount to ask for?
And how does this whole thing work? (obviously I'm ignorant of the entire process). Do you put something in the bill like, "Bob's Grocery" needs 1,500 to expand his cereal aisle, and then a couple of months later, Bob gets a 1,500 check?
The whole thing about disclosure of earmarks is a sham. It's a way for senators to pretend to do something while doing nothing. If they thought earmarks were bad, they should've prohibited them.
At Marginal Revolution they get right. With disclosure the senators take a hit when it is first found out. Once they survive this. It does not matter any more. So they try to get as much earmarks as possible because the people giving them money see how effective they are at getting them pork. So disclosure works in the direction opposite of doing away with earmarks
I think we should wait until there is an election before we judge the effect of disclosure. Some of these morons bragging about bringing home the bacon are going to be in for a shock when an adversary gets a hold of their remarks. As we know, the media ain't adversarial.
Thank God the Republicans no longer control Congress. But for that, we'd have Iraq war funding, nefarious surveillance laws, Congressional earmarks gone berserk.....
There have been almost 2,000 porky earmarks added to the 2008 Defense Authorization bill. (Actually the number is 1,776--that's the spirit!)
Congressmen Young(59) and Murtha(46) lead the list with stuff even the Pentagon doesn't want (and that's saying something). Among other pork, Young goes with "Atmospheric Water Harvesting" and Murtha wants a "National Drug Intelligence Center". It's about time!
http://porkbusters.org/DefensePork0726.htm
Murtha's nemisis Jean Schmidt won't be denied, she came through with $480 million for an airplane engine that the Pentagon doesn't need, but who can blame her, the GE factory is in her district. http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003629.html
Eventually, transparency, such as porkbusters and other government watchdog sites provide, will be the highest and best political use of the connectivity of the internet. Opinions...well, everybody's got one and they don't mind sharing with you, but this kind of transparency bog is less opinion and more fact.
I don't think the earmark issue is all that simple. Maybe more disclosure will encourage some reps to get more pork into their district, but there's always been incentive for reps to do that and never a reason for them to be quiet about it. On the other hand, there must be some reason that reps have wanted to keep the earmarks hush-hush. I'd rather err on the side of full disclosure. If there's going to be waste, let's let everyone know about it rather than keep it secret.
Matt, I would echo what others have said. First, the "transparency" rules are still pretty murky. Jeff Flake's staff has a lot of digging to do to put the project to the name to the dollar amount. Second, yes, popular public projects that benefit a community are certainly touted by congresspeople, but defense contracts and less public spirited stuff are not. They would rather nobody but the recipient notice that. Transparency is still good here. Seriously.
Comments closed August 19, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Nothing in the article actually quantitatively supports the claim that "more disclosure leads to more earmarks". It sounds like the dems are just getting warmed up, finding their legs, building up relatively slowly to the level that the republicans reached when they were in power.
Maybe you could make the case that transparency isn't putting a dent in earmarks, but I'm still all for transparency.
Posted by interrobang | August 5, 2007 1:18 PM