By Leo Brown
[President Obama's Weekly Address]
In an unusual moment of bipartisan legislation, the Senate has passed a transportation bill that would allocate $109 billion to the construction of roads, bridges, and transit infrastructure. If House Republicans support the bill, we will have secured two years of funding for construction projects.
House Speaker John Boehner has felt the heat from all sides, as his proposal did not fly with hard-line tea party Republicans. His ambitious five-year, $260 billion bill includes drilling in the National Arctic Wildlife Refuge, anathema to environmentalists and liberal Democrats. Tea party Republicans refuse to support the bill because of its price tag, which cannot be supported by oil and gas tax revenues.
The main problem with the Senate bill, from the perspective of the House GOP, is that it is full of earmarks. According to Speaker Boehner, "You take the earmarks away, and guess what? All of a sudden people are beginning to look at the real policy behind it. So each one of these bills will rise or fall on their own merits." The GOP House blanket ban on earmarks, now more than a year old, upholds this notion.
Regardless of whether transportation is funded by a long-term bill or another 90-day extension, a ban on earmarks does not accomplish sound policy and needs to be reconsidered. Earmarks, which dedicate federal dollars to local projects, are one of many ways the government can allocate funding. In the past, earmarks have been used irresponsibly, but there is nothing inherently less effective about earmarks than other forms of federal grants. Concerns about corruption and pet projects can be largely addressed on a case-by-case basis, as legislative funding is widely available on individual representatives' websites and on the Office of Management and Budget website. If the House Republicans feel that the system of including legislative earmarks is flawed, they need to propose a bill that will reform this system. Such a bill might require representatives to maintain a competitive, transparent process through which their constituents can vie for earmarks. A boycott, though, will not yield an intelligent result, and it is painfully obvious that our country is worse for the wear.
In the interest of both sustaining funding for worthy local projects and addressing Speaker Boehner's concern about legislative integrity, we might consider a third way. What if earmark spending, which typically amounts to less than one percent of the federal budget, were simply factored into the budget? Congress could pass bills that were entirely dedicated to earmarks. For this, they would have a certain amount of money, roughly equal to what has been spent on earmarks in the past, and individual Congressmen and Senators would have the responsibility of advocating for projects in their districts. This system would allow a certain amount of federal money to support projects that are otherwise sponsored by the state. The system would be institutionalized, streamlined, and much easier to monitor, and the transportation bill would not need to contain any earmarks.
This is only the beginning of an idea, but surely, any idea is better than a thoughtless boycott that fails to address the needs of our communities.
Regardless of whether transportation is funded by a long-term bill or another 90-day extension, a ban on earmarks does not accomplish sound policy and needs to be reconsidered. Earmarks, which dedicate federal dollars to local projects, are one of many ways the government can allocate funding. In the past, earmarks have been used irresponsibly, but there is nothing inherently less effective about earmarks than other forms of federal grants. Concerns about corruption and pet projects can be largely addressed on a case-by-case basis, as legislative funding is widely available on individual representatives' websites and on the Office of Management and Budget website. If the House Republicans feel that the system of including legislative earmarks is flawed, they need to propose a bill that will reform this system. Such a bill might require representatives to maintain a competitive, transparent process through which their constituents can vie for earmarks. A boycott, though, will not yield an intelligent result, and it is painfully obvious that our country is worse for the wear.
In the interest of both sustaining funding for worthy local projects and addressing Speaker Boehner's concern about legislative integrity, we might consider a third way. What if earmark spending, which typically amounts to less than one percent of the federal budget, were simply factored into the budget? Congress could pass bills that were entirely dedicated to earmarks. For this, they would have a certain amount of money, roughly equal to what has been spent on earmarks in the past, and individual Congressmen and Senators would have the responsibility of advocating for projects in their districts. This system would allow a certain amount of federal money to support projects that are otherwise sponsored by the state. The system would be institutionalized, streamlined, and much easier to monitor, and the transportation bill would not need to contain any earmarks.
This is only the beginning of an idea, but surely, any idea is better than a thoughtless boycott that fails to address the needs of our communities.
I don't know if I agree...earmarks are by definition behind closed doors, and flow to those with power, encouraging longevity in a representative instead of new blood...why shouldn't agencies distribute everything, with congressional oversight?
ReplyDeleteI think earmarks could function in a way that doesn't benefit the representatives themselves, except insofar as their constituents would be happy to have the federal dollars. If the earmarks were awarded on a competitive basis, and whatever competitive process were guaranteed to continue past the incumbent's term, then the "earmarks" would simply exist as an alternative to agency grants. Of course, they wouldn't really be earmarks at that point - Congress would simply be acting as an agency.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, if this were the system, I don't think it would be hugely different from what you suggest. But I think there is more of an advantage to spreading out the funding routes than the disadvantage of potential overlap/inefficiency. As the NYtimes article points out (second to last link in my post), straightforward, necessary public projects that have relied on earmarks for years are now scrambling to figure out the agency grant system. I suppose if everything were beautifully streamlined, it would make sense to have one funding source, but we're not there yet, and I'm not sure if it's worth it to force small-budget operations to "learn the hard way" how to navigate an unfamiliar system.
I don't think there's any reason *necessarily* to keep earmarks as part of the system, but a boycott is not an intelligent or useful way of producing earmark reform - as we can see now.