Earmarks are less than 1/2 of 1 percent of the budget.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/eliminating-100-percent-earmarks-cuts-federal-spending-less-05-percent
The Republicans have pushed hard for a budget, but the Democrats refuse to pass one. It is a Constitutional requirement. If the MSM were not completely complicit with the Democrats, we would have a budget.
The only reason that the Democrats get away with this is because they get a pass in the MSM on it. Can you imagine representatives and senators not passing a budget if they were constantly being hammered in the media about how they were violating their oath of office and neglecting their constitutional duty?
It’s not about the quantity of the earmarks, it’s about what they mean. And actually at this point the entire budget is earmarked, that’s why we’ve gone this long without a budget and without having to shut anything down. The whole budget is written with preset adjustments for future years, so if no budget is passed the old budget still holds.
The Republicans pushed hard lately. They went two years without worrying about it. There wasn’t even a debate until last year. That’s not MSM complicity, that’s the sign of how little difference there really is between the parties. They both knew that a budget debate wouldn’t play well to the audience so they didn’t bother to have one. The reason Dems get away with it is because the GOP is complicit, both parties have failed miserably in this regard. Well not really failed, because it’s all about power and they figured out that budget debates and the press they get are bad for the power. So even now when we have “discussion” about the budget it’s all backburner. Nobody wants it to play big, if the GOP wanted it to cost the Dems they could push it as a campaign topic, but they’re staying far away from it.