Posted on 05/12/2021 6:36:10 AM PDT by Kaslin
To point out the elephant sitting next to the 500-pound gorilla in the room, the federal government spends too much money. In spite of the regular verbal abuses levelled at so-called “earmarks,” they are not to blame for this massive problem. In a sense, earmarks, can be considered part of the solution. Why? Because they are transparent.
One of the primary catalysts for profligate spending is the near-complete lack of transparency in the annual congressional appropriations process. Rather than budgets with neatly organized line-items detailing where and how taxpayer dollars are spent, most federal spending results from huge pots of money allocated by very general categories for the thousands of federal offices, agencies, and departments authorized to spend those dollars. Attempting to track specifically where monies eventually are spent is nearly impossible, even for those familiar with the arcane process.
This purposeful lack of transparency is made worse due to decades of funding government through short-term (usually “emergency”) bills, where bloat and the sheer speed at which the bills are passed helps to ensure opacity.
One of the most popular Beltway novelties is Sen. Rand Paul’s annual “Festivus Report” that confirms what we have long known, which is that government is wasteful. The truly bothersome take-away from Rand’s study is the degree to which it makes clear the absurd ways in which taxpayer dollars actually are being wasted.
While Rand’s yearly opus sheds a broad light on wasteful spending, it is by definition, after-the-fact. Earmarks, on the other hand, provide a more current way for taxpayers to see how some of those federal dollars are to be spent, as they are specific line-items in proposed appropriations bills. This process allows at least a small amount of sunshine to be cast on an otherwise deliberately dark process.
Often, the stigma directed at earmarks is not with the process itself, but with the specific programs or activities to which the earmarks are directed. This is understandable. However, contrast earmark spending, which constitutes a mere one percent of the budget, with the vast office budgets for federal agencies that lack anywhere near the same level of transparency as earmark spending. We might know that a particular agency receives so many billion dollars in funding, but that is about it.
When considered objectively, earmark spending represents how government spending should be handled. In order to get an earmark, a member of Congress who has a specific need in his or her district must convince fellow members on committees to consider and approve funding for this need. If they are successful in convincing other members of the merits of their proposal, it becomes a public line-item in the budget to then be voted on, and with a “paper trail” for the world to see.
Imagine if all federal funding had to go through a similar process, rather than money just being tucked away in a “general fund” where billions in taxpayer dollars are allocated without ever seeing the light of day. Earmarks hold members of Congress accountable for spending habits far better than the overall appropriations process, notwithstanding they always make easy targets for “fiscal hawks” to prove they are “fiscal hawks.”
Not surprising, it rarely is noted by earmark critics that such proposed spending measures do not actually constitute new spending, but instead are specifically directed expenses from the amounts appropriated for the federal agencies that are to perform the earmarked projects.
In other words, whether earmarked or not, the money is being spent regardless, so the more honest conversation is not about earmarks themselves, but why Congress feels compelled to spend so much overall year after year. That, however, makes for a far more uncomfortable conversation, and one that many self-described “fiscally conservative” Republicans would rather avoid, especially when a president of their Party is the one on a spending spree.
Banning earmarks in the past did not curb federal spending, nor will doing so in the future. Unless and until Democrats and Republicans alike stop using the latest and greatest “disaster” to camouflage and justify ever more wildly excessive government spending, taxpayers actually stand to benefit from earmark spending, which affords them at least one tool with which to sift through the bureaucratic fog that otherwise hides the trillions of dollars Uncle Sam blithely spends.
I agree with Barr - it’s a waste of energy to go after earmarks when there is FAR MORE DAMAGE being done by letting Democrats have power (you know, to ‘teach the GOP a lesson’).
We can get to earmarks later, after driving out the Democrats (if that’s even possible). We have MUCH BIGGER fights ahead.
The Federal budget:
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid: 70%
Military: 15%
Interest on debt: 5%
Everything else: 10%
Get rid of the income tax. Put a Fair tax on all consumption. Eliminate departments and spread the money saved amongst everyone.
Yes the government spends too much, yes much of the spending is wasteful, and no neither party is will to do anything about it.
The problem isn’t spending it’s Congress period. They are clueless on running a business or running a country.
They are to blame for all 1the problems in this country because they created them.
There’s very few people in congress that know what needs to be done.
Better yet, don’t spend money you don’t have.
How many multimillionaire politicians manage their own money the way they do the governmment budget? ZERO..if they did, they wouldn’t be multimillionaires, they’d be dead broke sleeping in cardboard boxes down on skid row.
We need two laws.
Specifically tell us where every penny goes. If your agency wants 2 billion, tell us exactly what for.
If you don’t have it, you can’t spend it.
This has been one of my favorite pet peeves for many years. Why do politicians make millions for themselves, and let our government go broke? They should manage our money the same way they manage their own. Make it law.
First we have to drive out the Assistant Democrats before we can get at the real Democrats.
TransRepublicans have been blocking us from real opposition to the communists.
“First we have to drive out the Assistant Democrats before we can get at the real Democrats.
TransRepublicans have been blocking us from real opposition to the communists.”
No issue with driving them out, as long as they’re replaced by Republicans, NOT DEMOCRATS.
If they’re replaced by Democrats, then, short of shooting them up, there is NO WAY that they’ll allow us to replace them They’re done with fair elections, as HB1 and SB1 shows in plain daylight.
Earmarks are spending. 🙄
“Earmarks are spending.”
Of course - my point is that the Democrats, at this moment, are trying to win Senate approval to rig ‘elections’ into eternity. Which is more important right now?
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