Mommy, Where do Earmarks Come From?

Read it at the Standard.

And if you're interested in earmark reform, be sure to check out this encouraging item from the Club for Growth.

Earmark Debate Splits Hill Republicans

I wish I could say that this is a surprise:

The leaders of the Senate Appropriations Committee are calling on President Bush to back away from threats to kill funding for lawmakers’ pet projects.

The pre-emptive warnings from the top Democrat and Republican on the panel are the clearest signs yet that President Bush could face a bipartisan backlash if he uses his executive authority to wipe out the more than $7 billion in earmarks...

[Senator Jim] DeMint said that “nobody should act surprised” if Bush issues the order, noting it is consistent with the president’s 2007 State of the Union address to slice earmarks in half.

“I’ve yet to read the part of the Constitution that gives Congress the right to secretly waste billions of tax dollars on a bridge to nowhere and hippie museums,” DeMint said. “The president has the authority and the backing of millions of taxpayers to end the earmark favor factory, and I think he’s going to do it...”

Dyer worked as a deputy assistant for legislative affairs to President Ronald Reagan in 1988 when then-OMB Director Jim Miller sent a memo to all federal agency heads saying they did not have to spend money on the earmarks included in committee report language...

“All hell broke loose,” said Miller, now a senior adviser at the law firm of Blackwell Sanders. Within weeks, he backed down.

Bush would be swamped with objections from lawmakers as well. Nevertheless, Miller argues that Bush should pull the trigger and issue such an order.

“The extent of earmarks is much greater today. … It is obvious Congress cannot do it on their own,” said Miller. Citing the public distaste for the projects, the former OMB director said he believes it would be a political “win” to issue such an order.

I don't think there's any question that it would be a political 'win' for the President, for the Republican 'brand,' and for Republican candidates more generally. That said, Members would be angry about losing on some of their political priorities, and would take criticism from the small number of constituents who care about the projects. On the balance, it would be a net win for Republicans and conservatives, but it's conceivable that one or two marginal incumbents might lose their seats.

My bet is against the President doing this, but I hope I'm wrong.

Bush Considers Canceling Earmarks; Using Proceeds for Economic Stimulus

Read it at the Standard.

A Fox in the Henhouse?

There's probably no House Republican more dedicated to opposing pork-barrel projects than Jeff Flake (R-AZ). He constantly offers amendments to appropriations legislation to strike wasteful projects -- and he constantly loses the battle by lopsided margins. His inability to win any meaningful support -- among either Republicans or Democrats -- is clear demonstration that when it comes to earmarking, Washington is the same as always.

And if it is the same as always, there's no way he can win a seat on the Appropriations Committee, is there?

“Wouldn’t it make sense to have at least one Republican member of the Appropriations Committee who doesn’t earmark?” Flake wrote.

Flake made the case that putting him on the spending panel could have a positive electoral impact for Republicans.

“You have often said that ‘we have to earn our majority back.’ I agree,” he wrote. “But I think we can all agree that earning our majority back is going to take more aggressive action on earmark reform than we took during the first session of the 110th Congress.”

The Wall Street Journal editorialized on Flake's behalf yesterday:

Now that they are back in the minority, however, these same GOP leaders say they want to reclaim their fiscal credentials. So Mr. Flake’s candidacy is a test of their sincerity. Currently each of the 29 Republicans on House Appropriations receives earmarks. In a letter to GOP leader John Boehner requesting the committee seat, Mr. Flake wrote, “Wouldn’t it make sense to have at least one Republican member of the committee who doesn’t earmark?”

Yes, it would, though this would amount to a cultural revolution of Maoist proportions. The unspoken Appropriations commandment is thou shall not speak ill of another man’s pork. Mr. Flake could be counted on to police the worst excesses and be the taxpayer’s advocate on one of Congress’s most powerful committees. This is why he’s a long shot to get the job. But if he doesn’t get it, we’ll know House Republicans still haven’t changed their ways from the Tom DeLay-Bridge to Nowhere era.

If Mr. Flake were to win a seat on the Committee and continue to oppose earmarks in the same way he has on the floor, it would probably be a disaster. He would propose scads of amendments, constantly lose them, and quickly be marginalized. He would descend to Ron Paul status -- lonely and irrelevant. Appropriations business would continue as usual and he would be ignored by the media in much the same way he is now.

If he and House Republican leaders could reach some sort of compromise however, his presence on the committee could be a win for him, for House Republicans, and for fiscal responsibility. Mr. Flake could promise not to pursue every earmark -- or even every bad earmark (there are too many). Rather, if he agreed to serve as a watchdog -- identifying egregious and wasteful earmarks, and getting cooperation from his Republican colleagues on the committee to oppose them -- it could make a real difference. Appropriators would grow wary of him, and would try to avoid sponsoring earmarks that earn a place on his 'hit list.' After all, who wants to become known for sponsoring a 'bridge to nowhere,' especially if you know that you'll actually be forced to fight publicly for it?

This would require an act of political bravery by the House leadership, but it might be a political winner.

Update: Andrew Roth has printed the text of Flake's letter to Boehner.

WH: Congress Has Earmark 'Problem;' OMB Looking at Options

I missed this on Friday, but White House spokesman Tony Fratto addressed the glut of earmarks in the end-of-year omnibus bill. He indicated that OMB Director Jim Nussle is reviewing whether the executive branch can disregard earmarks included in report language, rather than statute. He also did a great job of laying out why earmarks re so bad:

...part of what he asked [Nussle] to do was to review all the options. We may not have tools to deal with earmarks. It may be largely an issue for, again, for Congress to deal with. We don't have a line-item veto, of course. But that's something that the OMB Director will take a look at.

Look, I mean, this is -- we talked a lot about earmarks. The Democratic Congress, when they came in, talked about earmarks and I guess -- maybe we need a 12-step group to deal with earmarks. They took the first step of admitting that they have a problem. I think one of the other steps is you have to make amends. So we'd like to see more amendment making...

Look, earmarks present a huge problem for government. Congress sets out lots of standards for programmatic funding. They appropriate the money, and then they tell agencies certain requirements. The agencies go through elaborate regulation and policy regulation processing, grant processing on how they're supposed to distribute money, how it's supposed to be merit-based, what priorities ought to be. States go through an equally rigorous effort to set priorities for funding that they get from the federal government.

And so to then have Congress come in and identify the projects that individual members think ought to be the number one priority, after agencies and state agencies go through all this time and effort and public rule-making to try to get it right, causes real problems for how you spend money. And in some cases -- I think we talked about this when we were talking about earmarks during -- when the Minneapolis bridge collapsed, that earmarks were noted as a particular problem because states go through this process -- in fact, they're required to do it, to list their top spending priorities for transportation projects. And sometimes earmarked funds don't get spent because they're not in the correct order of the list that a state puts together. So it causes lots of problems for agencies that are out there trying to spend money and really trying to do the right thing, based on merit and based on standards of regulation, that have been promulgated publicly, and commented on, and published in Federal Registers.

The White House is certainly talking right about this. It would be very disappointing if, after appropriate review, they were to conclude that they do not in fact, have the authority to disregard earmarks that are not written into the statute.

Of course, as the Heritage Foundation's Brian Riedl points out, it's not clear that the White House has the authority -- at least in this case:

The appropriations bills' texts contain several sections stating that a certain amount of a program's budget "shall be available for projects and in the amounts specified in the explanatory statement described in section...." This may effectively make many of the earmarks in the conference reports legally binding. The White House, as well as Members of Congress, should investigate whether that is the case. If they determine the conference reports' earmarks remain non-binding, then President Bush should issue an Executive Order cancelling all 11,331 earmarks and requiring thatall government grants be distributed by merit or statutory formula.

More from me on this here. And also check out Mark Tapscott, Glenn and Club for Growth.

On the other hand, Don Young and Ted Stevens defend earmarks to a local paper... Young has this to say:

“You show me a congressman who says, ‘I’m not going to have any earmarks, and I’m not going to listen, and I’m not going to provide,’ and I’ll show you a short-timer.”

Right. Just look at the failed careers of earmark opponents like John McCain, John Boehner, Tom Coburn, Jeff Flake, and others. It's also worth noting another earmarks defense offered by Young:

“People think their taxes go up and that spending gets bloated. It’s not true,” Young said. “If the money wasn’t earmarked for the state, it would be spent somewhere else.”

This is pure speculation on Young's part. Earmarking has become so central to the process that it's impossible to say whether earmarks come out of a set pot of money that Congress would spend regardless, or whether federal spending is padded to account for the waste. If earmarking were ended, it would be up to Congress -- not just Don Young -- to determine whether spending fell overall, or whether the federal government spent the same amount of money, but merely allocated it according to merit.

CAGW: Democrats Cut Earmark Spending by a Third

Never let it be said that I don't give credit where it's due. For all the criticisms I have (deservedly) heaped on Congressional Democrats regarding pork-barrel spending. Citizens Against Government Waste estimates that earmark spending will be down by about a third under the Democratic Congress. This report is from the Politico, because I can't find the information on CAGW's website:

Citizens Against Government Waste, which closely monitors federal spending, is putting the finishing touches on its tally of pork projects in the pending spending bills — and the picture isn’t pretty. The group estimates that there will be at least 8,000 earmarks this year, costing U.S. taxpayers, $18 billion to $20 billion.

Democrats and Republicans alike had promised to curtail the practice of directing money to specific projects.

They have, but not nearly as dramatically as their campaign rhetoric had suggested. In the last fiscal year, when Republicans controlled Congress, there were $29 billion in total earmarks.

So Democrats can rightly claim they are reducing the practice, perhaps by as much as 33 percent, as Congress Daily’s Keith Koffler reported this afternoon.

Now let's take that progress, and do even better.

Who Needs Earmark Reform?

Democrats claim that they've enacted earmark reform to curtail abuses. I don't want to say that claim is a joke, but we've gone through the problems with their approach before. My personal favorite: if David Obey inserts the earmark, it doesn't count -- apparently because he's not a Member of the House; he's an institution.

Today we get a pretty clear demonstration that the the Democratic 'reforms' have changed nothing:

House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), a passionate golf player, sponsored a $3 million earmark in the 2008 military spending bill for a program that attracts disadvantaged and minority children to the game of golf.

Even though Clyburn’s earmark appears minor in the face of a $471 billion defense bill that contains about $5 billion in disclosed member projects, it stands out because it has little to do with the military and was only introduced as part of the conference negotiations between the House and the Senate.

The project is attracting criticism from watchdog organizations such as Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW), which included the earmark as part of its pork alert to the 2008 defense appropriations bill.

In August the City of Columbia Golf Center was renamed the James E. Clyburn Golf Center, complete with a statue of the lawmaker. The golf center was built in 2002 with money that Clyburn helped obtain. The center is also a participant in The First Tee program, initiated by the PGA Tour and the World Golf Foundation in 1997 on the heels of Tiger Woods’ growing success in golf.

Why is it such a big deal that the earmark was 'airdropped' into the conference report, after both the House and Senate completed action on the bill? Because a conference report is non-amendable. The only way to cancel the funds now is to defeat the entire $471 billion bill -- which is not going to happen. This is probably the reason that Clyburn waited until the conference committee to insert this tribute to himself.

Check out this recent column by Jim DeMint over at Captain's Quarters, which chronicles the problems with the Democrats' non-reform.

And note: this neat little Clyburn earmark was inserted in contradiction to the reform called for last year by Democratic Caucus Chair Rahm Emanuel. Go take a look at the Emanuel plan to see how ambitious Democrats were until they took power.

Democrats Pork Up Spending Bill

The House is preparing to vote on a masssive spending bill for the Departments of Labor, HHS, and other agencies. According to CQ, Congressional Democrats assert that they've reduced pork-barrel earmark spending by 40%-50%, but have not provided a tally that supports the claim. CQ meanwhile, finds more than 2,200 earmarks in the legislation:

A Congressional Quarterly analysis of the conference report on the measure, released Monday night, counts more than 2,200 earmarks and special projects totaling more than $1 billion. That is about seven-tenths of one percent of the bill’s total discretionary spending of $150.7 billion. The bill would fund the departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education in fiscal 2008, plus several independent agencies, including the Social Security Administration.

The legislation was cleared for public review last night. Republican leader Boehner lists some of the projects funded in the bill:

• Hybrid loaner cars for staffers wishing to run errands or catch a movie during work hours.
• $520,000 (or $10,000 per week) in extra electricity funds to “absolve sins” by purchasing renewable, not traditional, electricity.
• The installation of a private E-85 gas station for Members on the Capitol grounds, lest Members have to drive elsewhere to full up.
• Segway personal transporters.
• $2.7 million to switch fuels for the Capitol power plant from coal to natural gas (even while 63 million American households use natural gas to heat their homes, but get nothing in the Democrats’ “energy” bill to increase supplies and lower prices).
• “Climate neutral” adhesive, sealants, paints, coating, and carpets.

Read also the Club for Growth, which points out that the Democratic leadership won't promise that there have been no new earmarks added into this bill after it passed both the House and Senate.

If this is such a good bill, why can't the American people have more than 24 hours to review it?

As long as we're on the topic of pork, check out the latest Google maps app -- on where pork goes.

Update: Check out Ed Morrissey, who has more of the wonderful ways that Democrats have come up with to spend your money.

Murtha: Hasn't Pennsylvania Had Enough?

Read it at the Standard.

Proof Democrats Haven't Changed Washington

Congress has sent President Bush a water projects bill which he's promised to veto because it's porked up. This is a little ironic; water projects bills are intended to be all porked up. Even though the veto seems likely to be overridden, this bill is worth noting because of the back-story:

The Water Resources Development Act would authorize $23.2 billion for flood control, navigation and environmental restoration projects by the Army Corps of Engineers. The administration has threatened a veto, saying the cost is excessive.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel confirmed that the president still intends to veto the bill. The final version is far more expensive than either the original Senate-passed bill, which authorized around $14 billion, or the House-passed version, which authorized about $15 billion.

That's a neat way to do business: the House votes $15 billion; the Senate votes $14 billion. In the normal world, the compromise would be $14.5; in Congress, it's $23.

When I worked on Capitol Hill, the general rule for handling earmarks in conference was that all earmarks in dispute were halved. That way conferees didn't have to fiddle around with changing overall spending levels.

In this case, it seems that the compromise was to fully fund everything on both House and Senate lists -- and apparently some other items as well.

Jim DeMint Wins an Important Victory on Earmarks

When Republicans in the last Congress, and Democrats in the current Congress, began taking up proposals to shed light on the earmark process, appropriators began to turn to the 'phonemark.' Simply put, that's when a Congressman or Senator calls an agency official to inform him or her that even though the Appropriations Committee hasn't said it, x dollars from a particular account are intended to go to this or that project.

As long as the Appropriations Committee stands behind the claim (or makes the call), it's no more or less binding than an earmark in the committee report. To address this end-run around earmark rules, Jim DeMint has gotten the Senate to agree to prohibit the practice:

The Senate on Tuesday backed a prohibition on federal agencies covered under the Commerce, Justice and science appropriations bill from using letters, phone calls or other communications from lawmakers in determining how to spend federal funds.

The amendment, offered by Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and approved by voice vote, is the latest in a series of provisions DeMint and other Members have proposed to strengthen the key provisions of the ethics and earmark reform package passed by Congress earlier this year.

With increasing public scrutiny of earmarks, many Members of the House and Senate in recent years have used “phonemarks” to direct federal funding to specific recipients or regions.

Although the White House Office of Management and Budget issued a memorandum earlier this year directing federal agencies to disregard these phonemarks, lawmakers have continued to contact executive branch officials over a variety of projects, according to data collected by the Sunlight Foundation. Additionally, federal officials previously have warned that given the power many of the Members have — particularly those who serve on authorizing or appropriations committees for their agencies — there is enormous pressure on them to comply with these requests.

DeMint argued the changes were needed in large part because of changes to the ethics package eliminating much of the law’s transparency provisions. Congress “pretty much gutted the transparency provisions. We’ve made some progress” in reversing those changes, DeMint said.

While the amendment will only apply to these agencies, and will only apply if it is preserved in conference, this is a valuable step forward. If the Senate votes to apply it to one appropriations bill, there's no reason to think they won't do so across the board. And as long as OMB is willing to assist in enforcing it -- by disclosing attempts by Members of the Senate to get around it -- it should be enforceable.

Another good move by Senator DeMint.

Earmarks Buy Melting T-Shirts

Representative John Campbell points to another wasteful pork-barrel project recently approved by Congress:

According to the Oregonian, Rep. David Wu (D-OR) directed more than $ 2 million dollars in T-shirt contracts to InSport International, a clothing manufacturer in Mr. Wu’s district. Unfortunately, these shirts are prone to melting and burning in high heat, thus rendering them dangerous and useless to soldiers in combat.

According to Captain Lynn Welling, the head surgeon of the 1st Marine Logistic Group, the polyester in these “melting shirts” adheres to the skin in intense heat, essentially creating a second skin which leads to horrific disfiguring burns.

Rep. Wu earmarked the contract into the 2006 Defense Appropriations Bill. Due to the design flaw, the Marines shortly thereafter banned the use of polyester shirts for use in combat, or anywhere outside the protected “Green Zone” bases. However, because of Mr. Wu’s earmark the Marines were forced to buy 87,000 of the banned shirts.

While the idea of a more comfortable shirt for our troops is commendable, the flaws of the shirts’ design were left uninvestigated. This is the purpose for process of competitively bidding contracts… to get the best product possible.

By the way, shortly after his earmarks passed in the Defense Appropriations Bill, Rep. Wu received nearly $15,000 in campaign contributions from InSport executives.

To show I'm an equal opportunity basher, I'll point out that the earmark was approved during a Republican Congress. Perhaps both parties can learn a lesson.

Congratulations to John Murtha!

The most powerful porker in Congress!


Check the report from CNBC.

Yesterday in a conversation with several Members of Congress, I criticized House Republicans for failing to do more to reduce or eliminate the number of earmarks in legislation, and the total value of such earmarks. That criticism is valid, I think. But while I want Congress to 'run' when it comes to disclosing and debating earmarks, the Democrats are making it nearly impossible to walk.

And frankly, Democrats have in nine months in the majority already racked up an impressive number of stories about abuses of power -- from earmarks, to fundraising, to perks... It seems that it won't be difficult next year to use noteworthy Democrats like Speaker Pelosi and John Murtha to drive up turnout. Their names are quickly becoming as infamous on the Right as Newt and DeLay were on the Left. That ought to scare Democrats.

A little more for your viewing pleasure:

Earmark Recipients Come through for Chairman Reyes

Read it at the Standard.

Why Lobby? Because Lobbying Pays

Business Week has done some research on the return received by companies on their lobbying expenditures. The results are frightening -- BW concludes that dollars spent on lobbying are returned many times over:

The results suggest a startling conclusion: On average, companies generated roughly $28 in earmark revenue for every dollar they spent lobbying. And those at the very top did far better than the average: More than 20 companies pulled in $100 or more for every dollar spent. By any standard, that's a hefty ratio: The companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index brought in just $17.52 in revenues for every dollar of capital expenditure in 2006. Or look at the results in direct marketing, where an extremely successful campaign might bring in $5 in revenue for every dollar spent. "If mainstream American businesses got a 28-to-1 ratio in sales, they'd be ecstatic," says Steve Zammarchi, president and CEO of Wunderman New York, a sales and marketing firm.

According to Citizens Against Government Waste, Congress spent about $30 billion on earmarks in 2006. Significant as that is, it's just a drop in the bucket -- the US government spent about $2.7 trillion in 2006, so earmarks were only about 1 percent of federal expenditures.

The bulk of federal spending is on entitlement programs -- primarily Social Security, Medicare -- consume about 40 percent of federal spending. The federal government also maintains farm programs, commodity price supports, welfare programs, subsidies for product research and development and a myriad of other programs -- all of which are heavily lobbied. The AARP, AFL-CIO, NEA, Chamber of Commerce, National Association of Manufacturers, and a host of other organizations also lobby for spending in this area of the budget. They spend millions of dollars, but in contrast to earmarks, the cost to the taxpayer is far harder to quantify.

Further, while a business such as Raytheon or Boeing represents only itself, its employees, and stockholders, those mass organizations listed above collectively represent tens of millions of Americans. As such, they have far more clout than any single company. Plus, they're far harder to demonize than any one of those companies -- because just about every American is represented by several of the groups listed above -- either directly or indirectly. So while the lobbying of specific companies for earmarks rightly attracts attention, the lobbying for more costly benefits will forever be downplayed.

Hat Tip: Rob Bluey

Flake Challenges House: Pork or Infrastructure

I wrote several days ago that Senator Coburn intends to make his fellow Senators choose between pork-barrel projects and infrastructure repair.

Thanks to a commenter for pointing out that Congressman Jeff Flake is doing the same in the House:

It is difficult to take seriously the argument that Congress is not spending enough money. According to the Congressional Budget Office, federal spending on infrastructure will approach $80 billion this year. The problem is not that we are spending too little, but rather that Congress puts strings on state transportation funds. Simply look at the 6,300 earmarks, worth more than $24 billion dollars, stuffed into the 2005 transportation bill. These particular earmarks are more troublesome than the usual raft of wasteful pork spending - and not just because of their sheer number.

The funds for these earmarks actually come out of the federal dollars that are available to states for transportation projects, limiting their flexibility to address priorities that they have identified. The goal of many Members of Congress in seeking earmarks is to be able to send out a press release or cut a ribbon, showing the folks back home how much they are doing for their district. Of course, these transportation earmarks end up short changing the state’s transportation funds.

While the “Bridge to Nowhere” was certainly the most famous of these earmarks, it at least resembled a transportation project. The most recent transportation authorization was replete with earmarks for bike paths, hiking trails, visitor centers, museums, beautification work, and other suspect projects that seem even more suspect given the events of the past months.

For example, Minnesota received more than 140 earmarks in the highway bill worth nearly half a billion dollars. According to a recent review, these included nearly $1.6 million for bike trails, more than $1.5 million for streetscaping, and more than $1 million for new visitor centers. With the state’s priorities undoubtedly shifting in light of recent events, Minnesota should have the flexibility to use its transportation funds as it needs to rather than on projects such as these.

Obviously, this problem is not limited to Minnesota. Congressional Quarterly recently highlighted that nearly all of the fifty most heavily traveled and structurally deficient bridges are concentrated in Los Angeles and San Francisco. My guess is that California has better uses for transportation dollars than the $5 million dollar earmark for bikeways and trails in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area or the $2.3 million dollar earmark for landscaping enhancements for “aesthetic purposes” along the Ronald Reagan Freeway in Simi Valley. These earmarks are even more egregious when you realize that California, like Arizona, is a “donor state,” meaning it receives less than a dollar worth of federal transportation funding for every dollar it pays in federal gas tax.

We can all agree that the Minnesota bridge collapse should serve as a wake-up call. Congress cannot continue to turn a blind eye to pork barrel politics that all too often reward the districts of powerful Members of Congress and tie the hands of state transportation officials. With this in mind, I plan to introduce legislation that will allow states the flexibility to use their transportation dollars as they see fit.

Both President Bush and Secretary Peters have both wisely dismissed calls for raising the gas tax and have called Congress out for squandering much-needed transportation funding on earmarks. The last thing we need is to raise the gas tax, which will simply give Washington politicians even more money to spend on earmarked projects.

We’ve been down that road before.

Hear, hear.

Coburn's Challenge: Fix Infrastructure, End Pork

Tom Coburn has a good idea for challenging his Congressional colleagues to put their money where their mouths are on infrastructure problems. If you really think that we are underinvesting in the repair of our failing infrastructure; if you really think we should put a greater priority on the upkeep of bridges, then spend less on pork and more on critical repairs:

Tom Coburn, who in three years as a U.S. senator often has tried to force colleagues into politically difficult decisions, plans to offer this choice when the Senate reconvenes following the August break: Do you want Pork or Infrastructure?

Sen. Coburn is drafting amendments to kill earmarks to the Transportation appropriations bill, with the funds transferred to repairing rotting structures. That asks senators whether, in the wake of the I-35 bridge collapse in Minnesota, they insist on keeping pork for their districts.

Writing in Human Events Aug. 10, Coburn noted: "The Federal Highway Administration declared the [Minnesota] bridge 'structurally deficient' in 1990 and directly warned Minnesota officials. Yet, since 1990, Congress has shown more devotion to pork-barrel spending than repair work."

While Republicans and Democrats have talked about reforming earmarks, they have consistently rejected amendments by people like Coburn and Jeff Flake (in the House of Representatives) to cut the pork. Coburn's amendments will probably still lose, since the media almost never report the results of such votes. By framing it in this way however, Coburn raises the chance of success.

And of course, Coburn is right to point out that when Congress earmarks billions to non-priority projects, they take away the ability of state and local governments to dedicate that money to genuine needs. If Members really think that we need to dedicate more resources to our weakened infrastructure, they will have the opportunity to prove it.

Earmarks: The More Things Change...

The AP reports that Congress is still spending plenty on earmarks -- for both Republicans and Democrats -- regardless of who's in charge:

The 435 members of the House together requested more than 32,000 pet projects this year — several thousand more than in 2006, when scandal-embarrassed Republican leaders limited how many each lawmaker could seek.

Only about 6,000 projects totaling $5 billion made it into the dozen spending bills passed by the House this summer, but members were promised they would get a chance to add military construction projects this fall...

The Senate has a costlier set of earmarks. There, Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., puts the total so far for senators’ earmarks also at about $5 billion — with billions more to come in a $459 billion Pentagon spending bill, always the most earmark-laden measure of all.

Byrd never bought into the Bush-House pledge, promising only to cut pet projects by an unspecified amount. As always, he hasn’t been shy about shoveling federal money into West Virginia, such as $2 million in renovations to a riverfront park in Charleston and $4 million to construct a multiple sclerosis center at West Virginia University.

Since 2008 is a presidential election year, it will be difficult for Congressional leaders to project an agenda distinguished from that of the party's nominee. This is true for both Republicans and Democrats. If Democrats field a popular presidential nominee, it will cover some of the sins of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. If the GOP is so fortunate, fewer voters will ask John Boehner and Mitch McConnell what their agenda is if they should gain power.

Nevertheless, both Republican leaders will need to find issues to move voters to elect Republicans over Democrats. Earmark reform is a good candidate. The only problem is that most Republicans like earmarks as much as Democrats. Will the GOP risk offending institutionalists to grasp an issue that might help restore them to power?

Boehner on Earmarks

The other day I commented on a column by Congressman Rahm Emanuel in defense of the 'reforms' Democrats had passed for earmarking. Now Republican Leader John Boehner takes up his pen:

The rules pushed through the House by the majority leadership in January on the opening day of the current Congress do include some commendable provisions that were not part of last year’s Republican reforms, and I commended the Democratic leadership for including these provisions when they were passed. Unfortunately, since that time, the leadership has constructed a system that conveniently ensures earmarks in such bills cannot be debated or stripped out on the House floor. This is a giant step back from the reforms Republicans implemented last year on behalf of taxpayers — and until it is fixed, this loophole will continue to undermine public trust and confidence in our institution.

Rep. Emanuel is wrong to suggest the current system in Congress is as open and transparent as it needs to be or could be. Republicans should have acted far sooner to reform the earmark process when we had the majority, and our failure to do so contributed to the loss last November. But while Republicans have gotten the message the hard way, the Democratic majority now appears resigned to repeating our mistakes. Americans are rightly outraged that Congress has passed an “ethics reform” bill that fails to ensure all earmarks are subject to appropriate debate and scrutiny. Legislative action needs to be taken in Congress as soon as possible to remedy this problem.

Earlier this summer I introduced a resolution that would require all taxpayer-funded earmarks to be publicly disclosed and subject to challenge on the House floor. I have requested that Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.) schedule this resolution for a vote to give all Members, Republican and Democrat alike, the opportunity to assure the American people that appropriate scrutiny is applied to all taxpayer-funded earmarks. I regret to report that to date, my requests have been met only with silence.

This sounds good. Bob Novak recently pointed out however, that despite all the talk on both sides of the aisle about earmark reform, both Republicans and Democrats are going about the business of earmarking in much the normal manner. As long as this is the case, it will be impossible for either side to use earmarks as a political issue. If the Congressional GOP wants to take this issue to the voters in 2008, they can't just sound holier than thou; they need to be holier than thou.

Emanuel: Reform Earmarks (And Forget What I Proposed Last Year)

Rahm Emanuel wants everyone to understand: Democrats never intended to end earmarks.

DEMOCRATS made earmark reform a campaign issue in 2006 — and a reality in 2007 — because earmarks were at the heart of corruption scandals in Washington. Democrats never promised to eliminate earmarks. We promised to reform them.

But of course, Democrats haven't reformed earmarks -- they gutted earmark reform. It's the primary reason they still cannot send the ethics bill they passed to the President. They gutted earmark reform so badly they fear a veto.

Emanuel also points out that some earmarks are GOOD earmarks:

In my own district, I obtained an earmark to rebuild a bridge that not only was rated as deficient but also was identified by the Department of Homeland Security as a major evacuation route in case of a terrorist attack on Chicago. Does that make me an “earmark thug” or a congressman who took care of a critical need in his district?

If it required this action by a Congressman to prevent a bridge collapse, it shows the criminal negligence of the city or state with authority for the bridge. I hope that Congressman Emanuel also called for the firing, recall, impeachment or jailing of the official responsible -- but I can't find any record of that happening. In fact, I looked pretty closely at the Congressman's website and can't find any mention of this bridge. I'm sure it's there somewhere -- but I would have thought that so serious a problem merited A LOT of attention.

I also find it interesting that Emanuel seems so proud of an earmark reform package that falls so far short of the one he introduced last year. This is what the House has adopted:

• Committees are required to list earmarks in a bill, and identify the requesting Member. But regardless of whether the list is complete or deficient, it's deemed complete if the Chairman asserts that it is. And if the Chair asserts that he (or she) inserted the earmark, no additional disclosure is required;
• Earmarks may not be traded for votes; and,
  
• A requested earmark may not benefit either the Member or spouse.

Impressed?

This is what Representative Emanuel called for last year:

• Neither a Member, the Member’s spouse, or any immediate family member may personally benefit from an earmark;
• Members may not request earmarks that will benefit a registered lobbyist or former registered lobbyist who serves as chairman of the leadership political action committee of the Member requesting the earmark;
• Earmarks may not be requested for any entity that employs the Member's spouse or any immediate family member, employs or is represented by a former employee of the earmark’s sponsor, or is represented by a lobbying firm that employs any spouse or close relative of the earmark’s sponsor;
• No tax measure may contain any provision amending Title VI of the U.S. Code to benefit one individual, corporation or entity; and,
• No earmark may be included in a conference report without the language having first been in either the House or Senate legislation’s original language.

Mr. Emanuel was awfully ambitious last year, when he was in the Minority. Now that he actually wields real power, he's settling for some awfully insignificant 'reforms.'

Read also porkbusters and Phil Kerpen, for more on the earmark sham.