Earmarks ban loom, lawmakers find ways to fund pet projects

Earmarks ban may loom, but lawmakers find ways to fund pet projects
'When one door closes, there is always two or three more that they can go through'

WASHINGTON — No one was more critical than Representative Mark Steven Kirk when President Obama and the Democratic majority in the Congress sought passage last year of a $787 billion spending bill intended to stimulate the economy. And during his campaign for the Illinois Senate seat once held by Mr. Obama, Mr. Kirk, a Republican, boasted of his vote against “Speaker Pelosi’s trillion-dollar stimulus plan.”

Though Mr. Kirk and other Republicans thundered against pork-barrel spending and lawmakers’ practice of designating money for special projects through earmarks, they have not shied from using a less-well-known process called lettermarking to try to direct money to projects in their home districts.

Lettermarking, which takes place outside the Congressional appropriations process, is one of the many ways that legislators who support a ban on earmarks try to direct money back home.

In phonemarking, a lawmaker calls an agency to request financing for a project. More indirectly, members of Congress make use of what are known as soft earmarks, which involve making suggestions about where money should be directed, instead of explicitly instructing agencies to finance a project. Members also push for increases in financing of certain accounts in a federal agency’s budget and then forcefully request that the agency spend the money on the members’ pet project. Because all these methods sidestep the regular legislative process, the number of times they are used and the money involved are even harder to track than with regular earmarks.

But a New York Times review of letters and e-mail to government agencies from members of Congrss shows that the practice is widespread despite the fact that both President George W. Bush and President Obama have issued executive orders instructing agencies not to finance projects based on communications from Congress.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40826138/ns ... ork_times/


Boy, I just love the smell of hypocrisy in the morning... What a surprise...

Insert standard "The democrats are [probably] doing it too" response here: ____________________

I wonder how many projects were letter marked or phone marked by the Democrats over the past four years?

A bunch, I'm certain, doesn't matter who is or isn't doing it. They all need to quit doing it. Will it solve the budget problem? Not by a long shot, but stopping earmarks, phonemarks, and whatever else is an important symbol that folks in Washington are serious about getting to work to get our financial house in order.

do you think it will get stopped next year?

thanks lj for the article and the link.

Without taking the steps to specify where the appropriated funds are to be spent, the default is that it allows the executive branch to make that determination. What this effectively would mean for the 112th Congress is that the pet projects of the executive branch would get funded first with any money appropriated for the various departments of the general government unless the legislative branch denies them that opportunity within the legislation. What good will come from having one house of Congress controlled by the opposition party if the current president and his cronies have sole determination in how the money is to be spent? Might as well forget about how the people voted in the last election given that the progressive regime sitting in the control of the executive branch wasn't willing, or didn't care, to listen to them for the previous 2 years if the executive is now to be given sole control of all monies appropriated for the various departments within the general government.

There is a distinct and definite difference between pork barrel earmarks along the lines of bridges to nowhere and earmarks directing that $500 million of the DoD budget be spent on upgrading and maintaining our aging fleet of B52Gs or outfitting the B1B Lancer with the latest terrain following radar instead of allowing that money to be spent planting trees on the bases to lower our carbon footprint. All of us here are intelligent enough to understand this difference, aren't we?

The difference is that earmarks are attached to legislation, often completely unrelated, with the intent of providing funding that will make the politician look good in the eyes of their constituents. Nobody's saying that there shouldn't be legislation that funds certain projects and programs, only that the legislation should stand on its own merits. Doesn't matter if we're all intelligent enough to understand the distinction, it's pretty clear that the folks in Washington do not.

What do you think of the concept of One Item per One Bill on One page?

Republicans and Democrats and Non-Affiliated alike? I don't care who you are.

Beeks wrote: The difference is that earmarks are attached to legislation, often completely unrelated, with the intent of providing funding that will make the politician look good in the eyes of their constituents. Nobody's saying that there shouldn't be legislation that funds certain projects and programs, only that the legislation should stand on its own merits. Doesn't matter if we're all intelligent enough to understand the distinction, it's pretty clear that the folks in Washington do not.

And I would think that most people agree that this kind of abuse has to end, but that is not what LJ was referencing, was it Beeks.

No, she was talking about Congress contacting the executive administrators of the various departments, such as Interior, Social Security, Transportation, &c., to ask that money appropriated to that department be spent on projects within their home states. For instance, Udall might contact the folks who make decisions within the Transportation department asking that some of the money appropriated to that department be spent on the construction project currently underway at Shaffer's Crossing. The so called lettermarks or phonemarks aimed at getting money that wasn't specifically reserved for this or that project within the Transportation budget, otherwise known as funds that are earmarked within the appropriation bill, spent on specific projects within their home states.

Certainly the practice of lettermarking and phonemarking could result in a quid pro quo situation whereby the executive uses funds that are not specifically earmarked by the legislature within that department's budget to purchase a vote from a specific member of Congress in exchange for funding a project within that member's state. It is a traditional and accepted form of bribery within the general government and is unlikely to cease in any of our lifetimes. One of the many reasons I think the less the federal government has it's nose in our business under the pretension of providing for the "general welfare" of the individual citizens, the better off, and more free, all of us will be.

I think it's exactly what she was talking about, all just variations of the same theme.......

What do you think of the concept of One Item per One Bill on One page?

One item - Absolutely. One page - Maybe? Don't know enough to know if that might perhaps be over-limiting....