Bush to Congress: Earmarks for me, but not for thee

February 10, 2008

In his recent State of the Union address, Bush told lawmakers, “The people’s trust in their government is undermined by congressional earmarks.”

What he didn’t mention was his belief that the people’s trust in their government is entirely unaffected by the administration’s earmarks.

President Bush often denounces the propensity of Congress to earmark money for pet projects. But in his new budget, Mr. Bush has requested money for thousands of similar projects.

He asked for money to build fish hatcheries, eradicate agricultural pests, conduct research, pave highways, dredge harbors and perform many other specific local tasks.

The details are buried deep in the president’s budget, just as most Congressional earmarks are buried in obscure committee reports that accompany spending bills.

It’s quite a list of pork projects the president wants to fund, including some specific earmarks the administration decried in the past but now wants to expand. A million here for an air traffic control tower, $12 million for a parachute repair shop, $6 million here for a study on the “properties of asphalt,” $2 million there for a neutrino detector at the South Pole. It’s quite a laundry list.

The White House defense for all of this is two-fold: 1) these are actually good earmarks; and 2) they shouldn’t count as earmarks anyway.

On the first point…

The White House contends that when the president requests money for a project, it has gone through a rigorous review — by the agency, the White House or both — using objective criteria.

…and on the second.

The White House defines “earmarks” in a way that applies only to projects designated by Congress, not to those requested by the administration.

“Earmarks,” as defined by the White House, “are funds provided by Congress for projects or programs where the Congressional direction (in bill or report language) circumvents the merit-based or competitive allocation process, or specifies the location or recipient, or otherwise curtails the ability of the executive branch to properly manage funds.”

Well, isn’t that convenient.

Taken on the whole, we have a president who never hesitated to sign pork-laden spending bills when Republicans ran Congress, lecturing lawmakers about the evils of earmarks while filling his own budget with special projects of his own.

Even close GOP allies of the Bush gang is balking. “The executive branch should be held accountable for its own earmark practices,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said.

Now there’s a concept.

“The executive branch should be held accountable for its own earmark practices,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said.

HA! Hold them accountable? Please. Bonner is one of the worst pond scums out there. When this admin decides to make him and his ilk irrelevant, he might scream and moan but it was him and the others that allowed it to happen.

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/02/07/6918/

  • The White House contends that when the president requests money for a project, it has gone through a rigorous review — by the agency, the White House or both — using objective criteria.

    Right! This is an administration that employs Alphonso Jackson and Lurita Doan and it politicized absolutely everything. There is surely no reason to believe that projects in Democratic areas would ever get a fair shake. The real question is why Republicans (including the strongest supporters of the administration) also believe that own projects will not be judged fairly.

  • I don’t know what got him into him but George Will is all over Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) and GOP corruption in today’s Washington Post. The headline is “The Road To a GOP Minority.”

    The TPM Muckraker has been all over Young and the Coconut Road interchange
    scandal for almost a year.

    Will closes his column with this line:

    “In his State of the Union address, President Bush vowed to veto any appropriation bill “that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half.” Coburn tartly notes that although Congress hardly needs 5,500 earmarks — half of last year’s total — the president’s goal would be met if Republicans themselves quit earmarking. That fact goes far to explain the Republicans’ current and future minority status. “

  • Isn’t the House Minority Leader’s name spelled “Boner”?

    It seems that the President and both parties in Congress have the same approach to earmarks: “Earmarks for me but not for thee.”

    What is so galling about Bush’s budget is that he just preached to us from his high horse at the State of the Union address about how tough he was going to be on earmarks – next year, after he is at long last out of office.

  • Thanks for the WaPo link, Mrs Panstreppon. I wonder why George Will is so tardy to this party. To TPM’s mountain of coverage, Will adds only one insight: that Congress is unwilling to hold Young accountable because he knows where all their bodies are buried.

    FYI, Young spent more campaign money in December on legal fees than he raised in donations. He’s since set up a separate legal defense fund because donors are unwilling to support his re-election if the money gets spent on lawyers.

    As for the president’s definition of non-earmarks, Young would be forced to agree. Don Young is willing to call earmarks earmarks because he loves them; he hates it when bureaucrats in the executive branch decide where money is spent.

  • This is typical constitutional hardball as practiced by Bush/Cheney. They find a gray area in the law — or claim that there is one — and use that as an opportunity to grab executive power. Earmarks are no doubt a problem on many levels (including the very definition of the term).

    But the larger issue is that Bush/Cheney is practicing a de facto line item veto, and usurping Congress’ power of the purse. What happened under a Republican congress to me is a separate issue and for the moment, a distraction.

  • I call them “strategic enhancements.” That asphalt study is particularly vital to our war effort. And Dick can shoot anyone in the face who doesn’t agree.

  • Also, earmarking money to add 1100 people to the Department of State under a totally asinine Secretary. Will Liberty University have enough right wing neo cons to staff the State Department. How long will these neocons be on the government payroll. Forever and you thought you had a government. You have a joke.

  • Danp:

    An earmark for a neutrino detector at the south pole is definitely a liberal earmark. Conservatives don’t believe in the existence of neutrinos. It says in the Bible that all creation is made of earth, air, fire, and water.

    Does Halliburton make neutrino detectors?

  • Just when you think you can no longer be shocked by the mind-boggling, pig-buggering hypocrisy of this administration . . .

  • If Congress is expected to cut the number of earmarks in half, then they should start by ripping every last one of Bu$h’s earmarks from his “budget.”

    Toying with neutrinos—at the South Pole? Sounds like he’s cutting a big fat earmark for someone’s oil-exploration costs….

  • In reference to #2:
    A neutrino detector at the South Pole would be a liberal earmark. Neutrinos aren’t mentioned in the bible, so it wouldn’t help get votes from the religious right. (A Noah’s Ark detector at the South Pole would be conservative.) The South Pole has not voted for a republican president for 100 years. (It doesn’t matter that it’s not elegible-it’s the principle that counts.) And there are no known residents of the South Pole that raised at least $100k for Bush in either 2000 or 2004.

    On the other hand, condemning Bush as anti-science isn’t entirely correct. He’s very pro-science as long as you build something big in Texas.

  • Even close GOP allies of the Bush gang is balking. “The executive branch should be held accountable for its own earmark practices,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said.

    This is just Boehner setting up the target range for the next administration. When a Dem gets the office you’ll mainly hear screams of outrage and the tearing of sackcloth from Republicans who have re-discovered “fiscal conservatism” and will find it necessary to block any spending proposed by the President.

  • 2. On February 10th, 2008 at 1:14 pm, Danp said:
    Would an earmark for a neutrino detector at the South Pole be conservative or liberal?

    It depends on who gets the contract to build it, whether they had to go through an evaluation process to get it, and whether they have to actually obey any laws when they’re performing the service required by the contract.

    For example: if the bid goes to Halliburton to build without anyone else getting to bid on it, the contract is “value enhanced”, and any rapists working on the contract get to have their “incidents” “arbitrated”, then it would be a conservative earmark.

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