Earmarks
- Posted by ryan on March 11th, 2009 filed in In the News
You have to give it to John McCain, he has played the instruments of our stupid national discourse like a fiddle. Congress just passed a $410 billion spending bill necessary to maintain government operations, which was some six-months overdue. Of that $410 billion, about $7.7 billion worth of funding will be allocated by Congressional earmark, rather than through typical funding formulas. That’s less than 2% of the bill’s total size, and it’s not at all clear that the earmarks represent additional spending, rather than just redirected spending. And yet the coverage of the bill’s passage is entirely focused around the earmark battle.
The country’s largest banks have trillion dollar holes in their balance sheets. The American output gap has also swelled to multi-trillion dollar proportions. But a grumpy old man who got routed in the most recent presidential contest, and who thinks a highly contractionary spending freeze is a brilliant solution to recession, keeps whining about a piddling amount of money which may well go to worthwhile projects and which may not represent any new spending, and the national press corps falls all over itself to play up his moronic complaints.
Oh well. At least today isn’t George Will’s day to lie.
March 11th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
I support my fellow curmudgeon. Congress needs to be treated like the schoolgirl who gets A’s on papers but puts gum in other kids hair. The cultural problem is treating the entire $T budget like it works by magic. Earmarks are just the most obvious symptom.
Although conditions are grave, frivolity is no solution. Until there’s a political cost for aggregating the budget out of favors. The process has a lot to do with the fact that you and others make good arguments for wise policy and get drek back.
I get that you’re a fan of the new President and want him to succeed. I do, too. But a good take-away from the last administration would be that an unchallenged executive doesn’t get better.
March 11th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
My problem isn’t with the sentiment (at least where earmarks are concerned; I have a significant problem with the GOP’s spending freeze numskullery). It’s with the lack of a sense of perspective. Someone concerned about responsible governance doesn’t raise a fuss over earmarks. The money involved is too small, and needn’t even represent new spending — it’s often just spending that’s no longer allocated by formula. McCain’s earmark crusade is grandstanding — this twittering about beaver management is absurd — and the press is abetting what is essentially a distraction from the bigger issues.
If McCain really cared about this stuff, he be engaging the president on issues like health care reform, which is a significant long-term budget threat. But that just doesn’t generate the headlines.
March 11th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
I still disagree, Ryan, except with the part about grandstanding- of course that’s what he’s doing. Smart spending is a crucial governance issue whether you are writing an omnibus bill, a healthcare reform bill or an HSR network. I’m glad McCain is perseverating on earmarks the same way I’m glad you’re there perseverating on public transit.
Well, I guess I also agree with the GOP being composed of numbskulls. We really need to start exiling.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
I’ll add a little. The risk of McCain’s approach is that it looks like earmarks are the problem when the problem is (at least in California where I watch more closely) that you start with a good idea, and build in from the desires of the stakeholders/special interests. The process by which you start with a goal and design something to serve that goal seems completely alien from the process of government.
When something doesn’t work, clearly doesn’t work, clearly wastes money and sometimes even harms intended beneficiaries, the policy stays still for the same reason there are earmarks- the desire to please organized appetites stays much stronger than the desire to solve problems.
The ethanol subsidy and tariff are other examples. Frankly, the 40% tax cuts in the stimulus are examples, although McCain wouldn’t concede that, I don’t think.
If you want anything at all accomplished by government, you pretty much need to start by bashing the budgeting process.