Reining in Earmarks Won’t Reduce Spending Much, But It’s a Good Place to Start
Harvard political economy professor Benjamin M. Friedman was seated at a meeting at Boston’s Emmanuel College in what he considered a “terrific, new state-of-the-art building” when Congressman Michael E. Capuano (D-Mass.) shared a surprising fact about the facility in which they were gathered: it was one of his earmarks.
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Emmanuel’s Maureen Murphy Wilkens Science Center is one example of a project supported by what are popularly called “earmarks,” or funds lawmakers designate for projects in their states and districts. Presidential candidate John McCain propelled the perennial controversy over these pet projects into the national spotlight during the 2008 election, denouncing them as politically motivated “pork barrel spending.” Earmarks remain within the populist crosshairs as part of growing concern about the federal budget. In March, House Democratic leaders imposed a ban on earmarks to for-profit companies, and Republicans adopted a one-year moratorium on all earmark requests.
But a Taxpayers for Common Sense analysis indicates that lawmakers directed just $15.9 billion to specific projects in their districts in fiscal year 2010. This comprises less than one percent of the federal budget, just marking an ear on the entire $3.5 trillion body of national spending. While cutting back on pet projects may be a good place to begin the marathon of budgetary reform, a serious effort to rein in the fiscal crisis must rely on improvements largely beyond this domain.
Meanings and Misconceptions of ’Marks
Whereas the general public conceives of an “earmark” as pork barrel spending directed to a specific congressional district, Dr. Susan J. Irving of the Government Accountability Office explained to the HPR that the term is legally defined as any tax dollars designated for a particular purpose. Funds from the payroll tax, for example, are “earmarked” to fund Social Security and Medicare.
The pork barrel projects people associate with the term “earmark” have been criticized in large part, as former Department of Energy chief of staff Jeffrey Kupfer explained to the HPR, because “projects are often approved in backroom deals—without sufficient time or opportunity to review and analyze the merits of the particular project.” Earmarks tend to be added during the conference phase of spending bills, when House and Senate leaders meet to iron out different versions of a bill. They are often approved by a process called “logrolling,” a “you scratch my back; I’ll scratch yours” system whereby members agree to support a bill that includes funding for other members’ pet projects in exchange for reciprocal treatment. Prof. Friedman pointed out that more senior members of Congress and members of the appropriations committees tend to hold more clout in the decision-making process.
While pork projects have traditionally served as a way for members of Congress to curry favor with voters, their perceived corruption and wastefulness in a time of massive budget deficits has rendered them less politically effective in recent years. Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, explained that the term “congressional directive” has supplanted the less attractive “earmark” in legislation and reports, and increasing numbers of political candidates are publicly opposing earmarks as a way to differentiate themselves from the status quo in Washington. Missouri Democrat Robin Carnahan, for example, is running for U.S. Senate as a staunch opponent of earmarks, in contrast to her Republican opponent, Rep. Roy Blunt, who has defended them throughout his career. Anti-pork crusader Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) recently highlighted a $500,000 earmark for the Vermont Wood Products Collaborative, a project to promote the development and marketing of wood products, as his Egregious Earmark of the Week, quipping that the project “woodn’t be the best use of taxpayer money.”
What’s Waste?
A few well-publicized examples of unadulterated pork have made “earmarks” a shudder-inducing word in the minds of taxpayers. Alaska’s proposed “Bridge to Nowhere,” which aimed to connect two remote, sparsely populated towns at a cost of $320 million, became an icon of fiscal irresponsibility during the 2008 election. Among the most ironic items in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, decried on the right as the “porkulus bill,” was $1.7 million for pig odor research in Iowa.
But apologists for earmarks claim they can benefit citizens and communities by financing such public goods as parks, teen centers, and educational facilities to support research efforts. For example, earmarks have funded critical health research, particularly in the areas of breast and prostate cancer and spinal cord injury. This year, U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is after $350,000 to help a western New York food bank move to a larger facility, distribute more food, and raise awareness about the extent of hunger. Congressman Michael E. Capuano, whose district includes Cambridge, Somerville, and part of Boston, has secured funding for such initiatives as Horizons for Homeless Children. This organization, which works to transition families out of homelessness through education, was able to expand dramatically thanks to government aid, allowing it to support more families in precarious economic times.
Of course, spending on an earmark may still be wasteful even if it serves a legitimate purpose. Pork barrel spending benefits the people of a single state or congressional district, but is underwritten by taxpayers throughout the country. Since legislators who undertake earmarks are effectively transferring money from people who don’t elect them to people who do, they have little incentive to spend the money in the most cost-effective way.
Shining Light: Transparency and Disclosure
One way to ensure better investment of taxpayer dollars is to improve the transparency of the process: publishing earmark requests would allow voters to hold members of Congress accountable for funding corrupt and wasteful projects. To that end, President Obama called for publishing all requests for earmark funding online in his 2010 State of the Union address. In May, two Republican and two Democratic senators introduced the Earmark Transparency Act, which would create a comprehensive, downloadable and searchable database of all earmark requests. The bill made it out of committee in July and awaits consideration by the Senate.
While cutting pork barrel spending alone cannot solve our fiscal problems, the current political climate ensures that earmarks will remain a divisive issue for the foreseeable future. The bipartisan consensus that America’s economic trajectory is unsustainable, combined with the present sense of urgency, provides an excellent opportunity to improve transparency that can ensure a more efficient appropriations process that will serve Americans well beyond the current fiscal crisis.