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Earmarks = Representative Democracy

Posted by TONY CAMPBELL, Columnist in At TMV, Media, Politics.
Sep 19th, 2008 | Comments

What is wrong with earmarks? If Senator Biden is correct that paying taxes is patriotic, what are we paying taxes for? My guess is that Biden would answer that government allows us to provide services for citizens that we as individuals can not do for ourselves.

We pay taxes to fulfill the promise of the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States. For those of you who have not had the time or need to read it recently, here it is for your information:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

We may, and do, disagree on the types of programs and the extent of revenue needed to pay for the government to provide these services but the general point is quite clear: the people coming together to take their aggregate resources to build a “more perfect Union.”.

Most of us would agree (liberals and conservatives) that the national government should not keep tax revenue to use as it sees fit. So how do we get the tax revenue back to our states and localities after we send it to Washington, D.C.? We elect our representatives to go to the House and Senate to bring back our money from the national government. These earmarks pay for needed expenses such as road and school construction, funding for our local first responders (police and fire departments), and provides funding incentives for small business development through enterprise zones.

Our money should come back home to benefit the people who sent it to Washington, D.C. The question should be whether the revenue was used for the public good or private gain? Was the money earmarked to be spent back home used wisely? If the main stream media wants to provide a public service during this election cycle they should focus their energy and resources on finding out who were good stewards of earmarks and who misused or was inept in their use.

Legislators who have gotten resources for their states have been part of the representative democratic process since the beginning of the Republic. Despite comments by John McCain to the contrary, his running mate Governor Palin has used earmarks while she was Mayor and Governor. Stop wasting my time telling me who did or did not use earmarks. I want to know who was an effective manager of our resources and who has squandered them.

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jwest

Tony,

Most people who oppose earmarks aren’t arguing against the federal government funding needed projects in the states.

What is objectionable and out of control is the secrecy and lack of accountability of earmarks being slipped into bills in the middle of the night – sometimes without any way of tracing them back to their authors. Also, these earmarks are written for specific projects that are normally to benefit some person or group who has spent lavishly on lobbying.

If there is a special project that needs federal funds, let the sponsors bring it to the floor in the light of day for a vote. For other state needs, allocate the funds to the state and let them decide their own priorities.

RememberNovember

That's the gist of it- not so much the earmarks themselves, but how they get squandered and fried into pork rinds. Sates that get more per capita in earmarks really shouldn't be calling the kettle black.
231$ per each Alaskan equals about 7 bucks for each New York denizen.

That's the price of a deli sandwich versus a night out for the whole family at a decent restaurant.

DLS

We know about the liberalism-riven trinity -- media, government, academia.

But J. West hints at a real Unholy Trinity in Washington (the subject of a book I enjoyed fifteen or sixteen years ago): lobbyists, Congressional staffers, and party apparatchniks, Democratic _and_ Republican.

A lot of liberals say what non-liberals say: Perhaps letting all citizens divide up the federal spending "pie" and allocation money to various kinds of activities (such as military or social spending or environmental cleanup and preservation or "earmarks" for truly-needed infrastructure repair or new projects) . (Lay aside the issue of if such activities are actually constitutional; for 40-70 years or more, liberals have not cared; just assume for this exercise that Washington can do whatever Americans want it to do -- that's the de facto situation, anyway). I'd rather see nation-wide periodic polls of such pie-division requests than have things done in secret and not necessarily with a great deal of expertise.

And let's give the President the line-item veto that's needed, or at least give him or her the veto over amendments, if not ban amendments to bills altogether.

APR

Earmarks are a frankly terrible way of investing in infrastructure and it's why our national infrastructure is in a terrible shambles. Projects proposed by representatives are not necessarily ones that will yield the greatest benefits to the people or the ones that can be done most efficiently. Instead, they are projects that have a lot of mass political appeal or ones that benefit powerful interests. The approval of proposed projects at the Congressional level is more dependent on political power of representatives and mutual backscratching. Not a terribly efficient way to go about it. Of course the "free" market doesn't do a good job of provisioning public infrastructure either, so unfortunately it has to be up to government to somehow figure out how to do these things.

roro80

I agree with most of the comments that something should be done about the way earmarks are handled, even while conceding that earmarks are totally necessary. I'm dubious of the suggestions here so far, though. The majority of the congress doesn't have time to read even the big bills line for line, let alone actually bring them in front of the session. Can you imagine how long it would take to get through that list? "I'd like relief for the spinach blight in California", "I'd like money for the new public transportation system in Delaware", "I'd like..." blah blah blah. They'd never get a single bill passed. Like I said, something should definitely be done about the way it works, but hell if I can think of a better way. Maybe more congresspeople per capita to take on the extra work?

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