The Swine Line

I thought it would be good to highlight and respond to some of the comments by the appropriations cardinals in the Roll Call story mentioned below.

Earmark Vote Divides Both Parties

Republican and Democratic members of the Appropriations Committee denounced the amendment and are pushing their colleagues to reject it. “What happens if we don’t say how the money should be spent with some specificity?” asked Senate Appropriations ranking member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). “We’re just turning over billions of dollars to the administration to spend without any guidance from the people, and the people are supposed to govern America. That’s what the Constitution says. Those that want to turn over the spending to bureaucrats are standing the Constitution on its head.”

“The consensus is, it’s not a good idea,” said Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), who sits on the Appropriations panel. “I’m just not prepared, and I think a lot of my colleagues are not prepared, to acquiesce to the nameless, faceless bureaucrats … making all those decisions.”

Sen. Cochran has been a senator long enough to know the answer to his own question.  And both senators know that there is a proper system for projects to be vetted by agencies (the “nameless, faceless bureaucrats”) that’s fallen by the wayside.

Congress did not earmark extensively until the 1980s.  Instead, Congress would fund general grant programs and let federal and state agencies select individual recipients through a competitive process or formula.  The House and Senate Appropriations Committees named specific projects only when they had been vetted and approved by authorizing committees.  Members of Congress with local concerns would lobby the president and federal agencies for consideration.  The process was aimed at preventing abuse and allocating resources on the basis of merit and need.

Today, Appropriations Committee members arbitrarily pick winners and losers by earmarking funds for specific recipients.  Rank and file members, backed by an army of lobbyists, bypass authorizing committees and lobby appropriators directly for pet projects.

Read more from: All About Pork:  The Abuse of Earmarks and the Needed Reforms 

…Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), an appropriator, blamed the hubbub over the amendment on “a fever that comes out of the presidential campaign,” and Salazar said the issue was the product of “election-year politicking,” not good governance.

While some of the support for an earmark moratorium is surely the result of election pressures, the issue goes beyond election year politicking and deserves serious consideration.  Public awareness and outrage over earmarking and pork projects has pushed lawmakers to make changes in the last few years.  It is not something that will just go away as Sens. Stevens and Salazar hope.  To paraphrase Network, the American people are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it anymore!  Members of Congress had better listen up and recognize!