About that ‘earmark reform’…

April 3, 2006

Last week, when the Senate passed a massive “[tag]lobbying reform[/tag]” measure, one of the more notable provisions was language that would lessen the “[tag]earmark[/tag]” appropriations that have flourished under GOP leadership. According to the Congressional Research Service, earmarks in spending bills for fiscal year 2006 totaled $64 billion.

The reform bill approved by the Senate last week wouldn’t literally ban these costly pet projects, but it would require members of Congress to disclose the earmarks at least 24 hours before debate on the spending bill begins. Presumably, the disclosure would help shine a light on wasteful [tag]spending[/tag], and make it more difficult for lawmakers to get the measures through.

Unfortunately, the provision is not as effective as it might seem.

Almost half of the special-interest “pork” projects targeted in the Senate’s highly touted lobbying-reform bill could still be slipped quietly into spending bills without public scrutiny, because of a glaring loophole in the bill’s language, according to analyses by The Boston Globe and budget watchdog groups. […]

[B]ecause the lobbying bill defines earmarks as only non-federal projects, at least 5,283 of the 12,852 earmarks in the 2006 spending bills alone would have been exempt from the rules. This is because the earmarks were funded through federal agencies, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan citizens group.

Earmarks in the arms spending bill, for example, would not be identified for public scrutiny and congressional debate, meaning that the projects inserted by former Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham of California, who is incarcerated for accepting bribes in exchange for favors for arms-related companies, would not have been exposed, said Keith Ashdown, the group’s vice president for policy.

The legislation gives the public the false impression that the problem has been solved, Ashdown said, but in fact, it retains “Washington’s pay-to-play political culture.”

You mean, a Republican-drafted plan to curtail earmarks doesn’t really do much to restrain pork-barrel spending? You don’t say.

Way off topic, but the Supremes just refused to hear Jose Padilla’s apeal. Via SCOTUSblog.

  • Pairing this item with the previous one about the unbuilt Iraqi hospitals, the terrible blunder committed by the Iraqi people becomes clear: You don’t vote, so the US govt doesn’t give a shit about building stuff where you live, suckas!!!

  • I still like the following “plan”:

    1. Allow each congressman and senator a certain annual “earmark bank” amount within a certain range, I guess primarily based upon some formula that also takes into account the population of each one’s district and federal taxes paid into the system, with the total combined amount of such earmarks not to exceed $15 billion.

    2. Each representative and senator may use their earmark account as they wish, on whatever in-state project they wish, up to the sum in their account each year ( I see no reason why account balances at the end of the year should not carryover to the next).

    3. Once a representative or senator exhausts his or her account, they can no longer use earmarks. If he or she then wishes additional funding for pork projects in that year it must be brought by a separate bill to be voted upon individually. In addition, there should be some sort of “supermajority” required for passage of these separate earmark bills–the person making the request will have to really show why this extra spending is necessary and why it was not as high a priority as the other projects pushed by the person (and which used up that person’s earmark bank).

  • BC, I would make the argument that this current Sadministration does not even give a sh** about those of us who do vote–case in point the Gulf Coast post-Katrina.

  • 24 hours? With numbers like that?

    ….at least 5,283 of the 12,852 earmarks in the 2006 spending bills alone would have been exempt from the rules.

    That potentially leaves 7569 earmarks to consider in a single day. If they worked around the clock, without a single break, they would have less than 12 seconds to consider each earmark. Then again, that’s probably 12 seconds more than they give them presently.

  • With the Republicans literally handing the November elections to the Democrats, any predictions on how they’ll screw this up?

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