Earmarks

Matt Moon keys off a tweet of mine suggesting a total earmark ban, at least until we get beyond the current disfigurement of the federal budget. He writes:

I agree with Patrick that earmarks are the most visible symbol. But that's exactly the problem. I don't agree that it's enough for Republicans to fix "symbols" of how we've lost our way. I don't agree that we need to focus on symbols. Yes, we need to fix the abuse of the earmark process by reforming it. But the fact is that not all earmarks can be construed as wasteful spending and not all wasteful spending are in earmarks.

I agree that earmarks are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to wasteful spending. Of late, I've also taken a dim view of symbolism as a substitute for policy. But here's the thing.

If we are going to spend $819 billion on an economic stimulus, and a $410 billion omnibus on top of it, the least Congress could do to signal that they are giving up some part of the gravy train is to suspend earmarked spending for the duration of the budget crisis. This is a political winner for Republicans. Republicans didn't have the votes to stop the stimulus or the omnibus, but we could rally public opinion around the idea of cutting off the part of the budget process perceived as the most politically self-serving and corrupt. It's not hundreds of billions of dollars, but it still makes a statement against the idea that the electorate can be bought with government dollars. In a minority situation such as the one we are in, it helps to pick fights we can win in the court of public opinion.

The political case for earmarks rests on the myth that constituents, Republicans and Democrats, want earmarks. In individual cases, this is true. But in the aggregate, polling has shown that the public takes a dim view of the process. And incumbents who do not take earmarks are re-elected at the same rate as incumbents who do.

The trouble with earmarks, beyond just their symbolic importance, is that earmarked spending is inherently recreational in nature. They are mostly for one-off projects that were never funded before, and are often a substitute for private investment -- making each earmark a mini-bailout.

Regardless of price tag, Republicans should not be in the business of defending new and optional spending. It's just not in our DNA as Republicans. One can be a fiscal conservative and support spending on basic public services like police, schools, and roads that are funded year in and year out. If earmarked projects are truly necessary, they should be funded through the ordinary budget process, not through haphazard one-off earmarks.

BOTTOM LINE UP FRONT: We need to win the battles over definitions, principles and policy when it comes to fiscal matters.

President Barack Obama has signed the $410 billion omnibus spending bill, and has broken yet another promise that he made during the campaign. Apparently, there was some debate in the Oval Office over what to do with the bill:

"White House aides said they debated whether the president should sign an omnibus spending bill that includes more than 8,500 pet projects worth $7.7 billion.

"White House counselor David Axelrod suggested a veto would send a strong signal that Mr. Obama's Washington really would represent change. But the president decided it wasn't worth adding a fight with his own party onto a plate that is already overly filled."

We can also surmise that Obama was too embarrassed to sign the bill in public. Check out these tweets from ABC News' Jake Tapper:

jaketapper: "Why are you not signing this bill in public?" the president was asked after he talked about earmark reforms he'd like to see. no answer.

jaketapper: president obama signed the omnibus spending bill...no photographs allowed.

I didn't think too much more about it until Patrick Ruffini, @thingsbreak and I had this short Twitter conversation:

PatrickRuffini: GOP should call for a total ban on earmarks in light of the economy and the deficit. Every day we don't do so we seal our irrelevance #tcot

alaskan: @PatrickRuffini Problem is that there's wasteful spending that aren't earmarks. Need to find a way to describe appropriate public goods.

thingsbreak: @PatrickRuffini But renouncing rather than reforming is political suicide. Earmarks are not intrinsically evil but abused. Agree/disagree?

PatrickRuffini: @alaskan @thingsbreak Earmarks are the most visible and easiest to fix symbol of how Republicans have lost their way

I agree with Patrick that earmarks are the most visible symbol. But that's exactly the problem. I don't agree that it's enough for Republicans to fix "symbols" of how we've lost our way. I don't agree that we need to focus on symbols. Yes, we need to fix the abuse of the earmark process by reforming it. But the fact is that not all earmarks can be construed as wasteful spending and not all wasteful spending are in earmarks.

At the Heritage Foundation's Conservative Bloggers Briefing, I mentioned this to Congressman Tom Price (R-GA), chairman of the House Republican Study Committee, and asked him how we can move away from discussing earmarks and move towards discussing wasteful spending. Price went on to talk about the growing deficit and debt, and said that we have to communicate these large numbers to the American people. I don't think this is quite enough.

It's easy to come up with rhetoric denouncing "the evils of earmarks," but what we should be focusing on substantively is wasteful spending. Republicans should take three concrete steps to revive conservatism in sound fiscal policy: (1) defining public goods and wasteful spending, (2) reformulate principles that voters can connect with, and (3) promoting new fiscal processes and policies that can achieve less spending, more transparency and better prioritization.

(For details on these steps, read below the fold.)

Gov. Blagojevich was caught offering to trade a decision for a reward, personal or political.  This is widely understood to be disgraceful and illegal.

But is it really so unusual?  How does what Gov. Blagojevich did differ from the (bipartisan) extortion that is considered routine in Congress?  Blagojevich sought $1 million; Congressional bribes cost billions.

House Democratic leaders are offering billions in federal funds for lawmakers' pet projects large and small to secure enough votes this week to pass an Iraq funding bill that would end the war next year. ... To get them off the fence and on the bill, Democrats have a key weapon at their disposal: cold, hard cash.  The bill contains billions...

Perhaps one might argue that Blagojevich sought personal benefit when he demanded campaign contributions in exchange for his vote.  Perhaps.  But earmarks are little more than incumbent slush funds - a de facto campaign contribution, paid for by US taxpayers.  The effect is the same. (we are leaving aside, for the moment, the also-vexing issue of vote-trading)

The legislative bribery works two ways.

1. Pork buys votes for the basic legislation (as described above), or...
2. Legislation is leverage to get votes for otherwise unacceptable pork.  After all, you can't vote against funding a spinach farm without voting against funding the troops; and you can't vote to fund the troops without voting for a few billion dollars worth of pork.  Whatever the legislative rationale for these omnibus bills, they amount to extortion.

Yes, Gov. Blagojevich is a disgrace.  But Gov. Blagojevich merely did what our US Congress does as a matter of routine.

Well one thing the ressurection of the Bailout Bill should show is that when Sarah Palin says she killed the Bridge to Nowhere and Charles Gibson smugly responded "After Congress voted it down." that he was talking through his hat.

What Palin should have said back to Charlie was "You know Charlie in politics there are very few last innings, the fat lady very rarely sings.  Just because Congress removes an earmark one day doesn't mean that a day, a week, a month or a year later that the earmark would not be returned to the budget.  There was nothing stopping me from instructing our lobbyist to continue working on getting that bridge into the budget."

The Bailout Bill was voted down and yet here it is again.  So Congress voting something down means nothing.

Promoted - Ryan Ellis is the Director of Policy at Americans for Tax Reform.

Rich Lowry and others are calling tax cuts in the Senate bailout package "earmarks" today.

Calling tax cuts "earmarks" is very unhelpful and completely wrong from a fiscal conservative perspective. There is no such thing as a “tax earmark.” Earmarks are spending. There are appropriations earmarks. There are authorization earmarks. There are no “tax earmarks.” To claim that there are puts tax deductions and credits (which is what we’re talking about here) on the same par as bridges to nowhere. Was the creation of HSAs a “tax earmark?” How about the home mortgage interest deduction? One might call for lowering the rates and broadening the base, but we should not fall into the trap of equating tax cuts and spending increases. That’s how some Senate Republicans got in such massive trouble over health care last year and energy this year vis-à-vis taxes.

A tax cut is not the same thing as a spending increase.

Here’s a thought experiment for the dubious: suppose we eliminated the mortgage interest deduction and had HUD give every homeowner a $10,000 subsidy to pay his mortgage.  It’s all good, right?  Heck, we’re just replacing a “tax earmark” with a “spending earmark.”  Except that this “swap” would increase taxes and increase spending by hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

EARMARKS = SPENDING

Tennessee Democrat Bob Clement served in Congress from 1988 to 2003. Historians will decide what legacy he achieved during that time, but here’s a new video to help them.

It is the first episode in “Porkbusters On Patrol,” the kind of project made for pork-hating Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin. It is a networked journalism series announced by Eyeblast.tv and the bipartisan Porkbusters coalition this summer. Subscribe to our Porkbusters channel for future episodes.

We’re still looking for Porkbusters across the country to produce video reports. Search the 2008 “Pig Book” of Citizens Against Government Waste for ideas from your area, and send your e-mail pitches to me: dglover-at-eyeblast-dot-tv.

If you want to join our army of citizen reporters but don’t have a camera, you can get one free in exchange for your work. Just request a Flip video camera when you e-mail your story ideas.
 

A guest post from an anonymous insider on the Right.

In general, when Congress funds a specific product or program, companies engage in a competitive process to receive the money.  However, earmarks circumvent the process and allow Politicians to determine who gets the government funds.  Earmarks allow Politicians to fund their pet projects or provide benefits to companies which help fund their campaigns. 

For instance, General Motors has contributed $29,000 to Sen. Carl Levin's campaign.  In exchange, he earmarked $10 million dollars for them in the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill.  That's a substantial return on an investment.
 
Senator Levin apparently does not like the press he is receiving from his earmarking efforts (49 requests in this legislative cycle alone), so he has devised a scheme to cover up his activity - a scheme that threatens the entire fight against earmarks. 

I am reliably told that Senators DeMint and Senator Coburn are willing to go to war on this issue.

To cover up his activity, Senator Levin is attempting to place earmarks in committee reports instead of including them as part of the legislative language.  He did this by hiding some language in the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill which changes the way earmarks are viewed. 

Most senators don't bother to read legislative language and even fewer have time to read more extensive committee reports.  Under Senator Levin's cover up scheme, he can hide behind committee reports that are never voted on and talk out of both sides of his mouth by arguing that committee reports do not have the force of law.  What Levin will not tell you is that, because of the special language he slipped in, earmarks in committee reports do have the force of law.
 
Senator DeMint has an amendment (cosponsored by Senators Coburn and Burr) to strike the requirement that earmarks which have not been voted on in committee or otherwise be treated as law.  Senator DeMint attempted to offer his amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill on Thursday afternoon, but Senator Levin objected to even the right to debate the issue and would not allow Senator DeMint to introduce the amendment for consideration. 

Obviously, Senator Levin has something to hide.

If Senator DeMint is not allowed to offer his amendment, $5.9 billion in earmarks will be handed out at the taxpayers' expense without the benefit of any debate.

As the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Senator Levin has the responsibility of writing the committee report and he can place anything in the report he chooses.  He has chosen to use his Chairmanship to the tune of $198 million.  And to cover it up so that the corrupt earmarking status quo would continue.

Senate Democrats promised more open government.  This is not it. 
 
Senator Levin announced on Thursday that cloture on the bill will be filed on Friday.  If cloture is invoked, America will suffer a $5.9 billion cover up.

The logic of interest groups sometimes escapes reason. They often issue endorsements based on scored votes. They have to do that. But they shoot themselves in the foot. Jon has written about this with Don Young and Americans for Tax Reform. Certainly ATR has redeemed itself with the "rats head in a Coke bottle". But still, in a 150 vote House race, which AK-AL turned in to, that ATR award might have made the difference, giving us a venal Democrat over a good reformist Republican.

Well, the Chamber of Commerce is doing it too. In Louisana, they endorsed Mary Landreiu over proven vote-winner State Treasurer John Kennedy. She empowers union thugs. She voted for card-check, the "Employee Free Choice Act." But get this. According to the Chamber's CEO, defeating card-check is their highest priority:

"The main thing is that we want to keep enough people in the Senate to maintain the filibuster," he said.

They want 40 people. But they endorse someone for it who is running against someone against it. John Kennedy can actually win this race, if he gets some support.

But righty groups play defense for his corrupt opponent.  Corrupt? Where did that come from. Today, CREW, an unimpeachably lefty organization, declared Mary Landreiu one of the "most corrupt members of Congress". Why?

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-LA) is a second-term senator from Louisiana.  Her ethics issues stem from inserting an earmark into an appropriations bill to benefit a large campaign donor.

Just like ATR, acting totally rationally, may have delivered us a venal Alaskan Democrat, the Chamber may have delivered us an economy-crippling card-check bill by backing a corrupt politician who votes against them when it counts.

Thanks guys.

This story is getting some attention on Digg. So digg it!

Obama funnels federal money to top campaign contributors

Although earmarking large sums of money to top supporters and fundraisers is a popular practice in both houses of Congress, not many people would expect such questionable activity from a shining star of liberalism and reform like Illinois Senator Barack Obama. Sadly, he is following a pattern of conspicuous allocations of federal funds. Just as he handed a million dollar earmark to his wife’s employers in 2006 (immediately after which her pay shot up from $121,910 a year to $316,962), Sen. Obama is now drastically increasing earmarks that go to his biggest supporters.

 In 2006, Sen. Obama requested an earmark $300,000 to replace and update the projector system at the Adler Planetarium. In 2008, he requested $3,000,000 for replacement of the projector system and other equipment in the Sky Theater. For reference, this is three times the amount he earmarked for the HIV/AIDS Policy and Research Institute at Chicago State University.

While the Adler Planetarium earmarks look normal on the surface, there is a catch. The Chairman and two of the Vice Chairman of the Adler Planetarium Board of Trustees raised a total of almost $250,000 for Sen. Obama’s 2008 Presidential campaign. The Adler Planetarium was probably pleasantly surprised when they found that their earmark increased by $2.7 million dollars, in other words, by a factor of ten.

The Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Frank Clark, stands out amongst Obama supporters. On Sen. Obama’s website, Mr. Clark is listed as a bundler who raised in excess of $200,000 for the Senator’s Presidential campaign. In 2004, Mr. Clark donated $5,000 to the then State Senator Obama’s U.S. Senate bid. In 2005, Mr. Clark became the Chairman of the Board at Adler Planetarium, and in 2006 Sen. Obama earmarked $300,000 to the Planetarium. Then, in the same year that Mr. Clark’s involvement in the Obama campaign skyrocketed to raising an excess of $200,000, Sen. Obama’s earmark for the Adler Planetarium increased tenfold to $3,000,000.

Mr. Clark isn’t the only problematic donor. Two of the Vice Chairmen of the Board, Brian Cressey and Peter Thompson are also significant donors. Between donations from Mr. Thompson and the Cressey household, Sen. Obama received $13,800. The most significant donor here is Mr. Cressey. As a first time donor, Mr. Cressey gave the maximum possible individual donation in essentially one big check. What makes this even more troubling is that Mr. Cressey had never given to Sen. Obama before 2008, the year in which the Adler Planetarium’s earmark increased tenfold.

The fact that three ranking members of the Adler Planetarium’s Board donated huge sums of money (at least $200,000) is interesting by itself. The fact that these enormous contributions came in the same year that Sen. Obama increased their earmark by 900% is truly unsettling. 

Written by David and Daniel Byler

This is just dumbfounding...

REP. YOUNG NAMED HERO OF THE AMERICAN TAXPAYER
Recognized for Hard Work in Congress Alaskan Congressman

Don Young attended a reception last night where he received an award from each of the following groups: Americans for Tax Reform, American Shareholders Association, Alliance for Worker Freedom, and the 60 Plus Association.

What the hell is wrong with the Right?  Don Young.....

• ...is responsible for the Bridge To Nowhere earmark
• ...shouted "my money, my money!" when he was criticized for the Bridge to Nowhere.  
• ...is under FBI investigation for potentially taking bribes.  
• ...is also under investigation for altering an earmark (after the bill had passed the House and Senate) to benefit a campaign contributor. 
• ...is the politician who said "I’d like to be a little oinker, myself".
• ...is the politician who said of the highway bill, "It’s not a good way to legislate, although I got a lot of stuff in it ... I mean I stuffed it like a turkey.”
• ...is the politician who said he is "not [frustrated in] the minority because I took care of the minority when I was in the majority; they are taking care of me now."

Oh, and Don Young has said he would support a tax hike "to pay for even more projects".  Rob Bluey has more at Red State.  

This is the guy we're giving awards to? Is there anybody the Right will not decorate and applaud so long as they vote for tax cuts? 

Eric Hoffer once said that “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket.”    The Right is reaching the latter stages of that cycle.  It needs a purge.  We should start with people like Don Young, and those who enable them.