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Cuts in military pork fall short of rhetoric
 Monday, October 5, 2009Thus spoke candidate Barack Obama in last fall's first presidential debate, when asked about the targeted "spending with a Zip Code" items, known as earmarks, that lawmakers tuck into appropriations bills. Since reaching the White House, however, Obama's zeal for tackling congressional add-ons has been lukewarm, at best. Early in his presidency, he signed a pork-laden spending bill left over from the previous year but vowed to be more vigilant going forward. Now, his administration is lauding a $636 billion defense spending bill, for the fiscal year that began Thursday, that includes $2.7 billion in earmarks. The measure contains funding for a new destroyer and 10 C-17 cargo planes that the Pentagon did not ask for. It also includes hundreds of smaller earmarks for projects of special interest to individual lawmakers, among them $25 million for a World War II museum in New Orleans and $20 million for the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate in Boston, a kind of think tank dedicated to the legacy of the late senator. To be sure, earmarks often do not add new spending but divert it from other uses. And in a federal budget increasingly dominated by spending on things such as health care and retirement benefits, they don't add up to much. The earmarks in the defense bill, for instance, are less than one-tenth of 1% of projected federal spending next year. It's also understandable that Obama doesn't want to expend political capital battling earmarks when he's trying to assemble votes for health care reform. Earmarks do, however, invite a level of corruption and raw power politics that presidents should try to quell. Once limited to pet projects in members' states and districts, they have been used increasingly to funnel taxpayer dollars to campaign contributors or to lawmakers' friends, relatives and ex-aides. Tell Congress to Kill Obama's Health Bill by Exposing the Details -- Select Here! One former congressman, Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., is in prison for using earmarks to collect $2.4 million in bribes. And one current congressman, John Murtha, D-Pa., is a one-man industry of questionable dealings, having used earmarks to shovel money to companies in his district. Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., calls earmarks a "gateway drug" to out-of-control spending and graft, and there's validity to that argument. Earmarks soared to historic levels during the administration of George W. Bush, a time of extraordinary fiscal irresponsibility, but they were much more under control during the administrations of George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, both of whom emphasized fiscal responsibility. Defenders of earmarks argue that Congress has every right to exercise some discretion on how money is spent. They also note that the number and size of earmarks are down and that Congress is doing a better job of disclosing them. True enough. But most of the improvements are modest and made possible by the excesses of recent years. The Senate's Pentagon bill cuts the earmark total only by about 11%. That's like a man who has gained 100 pounds crowing about losing 11. Obama and Congress have a long way to go before they can proclaim themselves the Biggest Loser. Original Article |
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