On a U.S. Treasury Department website is this opening statement: “The U.S. government has spent $1.06 trillion in fiscal year 2024 to ensure the well-being of the people of the United States.”
(italics mine) That’s since October, barely two months! At this rate,
your “representatives” in the House and Senate are on track to spend $7
trillion again in 2024. Are you feeling that “well-being” yet?
Still, this week the Senate passed the $886.3 billion National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)
by a vote of 87-13, with only six Republicans voting against the
3,000-page boondoggle. That’s right, all the other “conservative” GOP
senators (like Cruz, Tim and Rick Scott, Rubio, Cotton, Johnson,
Blackburn, et al) once again pulled the football back at the last
minute, Charlie Brown, and left you, the hapless and gullible GOP voter,
humiliated…and on the hook for another almost trillion dollars in
debt. ......To Read More.....
After a decade of exile from the Swamp, a special kind of spending
provision is making a comeback. Call them earmarks if you love them,
political pork if you hate them, this practice of trading of money and
favors was banned by both parties in 2011 for a reason – but it’s back, baby. And while it was no surprise to discover that congressional Democrats in the age of Biden welcomed the return with open arms, the GOP response in the House may have some voters’ heads spinning.
Vexing the Voters
When
many of the Republicans in office today – in both chambers – first won
their seats, they did so by riding a wave of small-government
ideological fervor. After many years in practice and more scandals than
any sane person would dedicate the time to count, earmarks had left a
nasty taste in the mouths of conservative voters. When the GOP needed
the headcount, political pork was no good – it was a tool of corruption.
But on March 17, while constituents were out enjoying their green beers
and Saint Patrick’s Day parades, the Republicans of the House voted to
allow earmarks 102 to 84. And they did it by secret ballot so that
voters can’t hold them accountable come November 2022. Evidently, when
money talks, integrity walks.
“Earmarks
have become a symbol of a Congress that has broken faith with the
people,” soon-to-be Speaker of the House John Boehner said when he
banned the practice shortly after the 2010 election. “This earmark ban
shows the American people we are listening and we are dead serious about
ending business as usual in Washington.”
The Tea Party
Republicans hated earmarks, and their clout in that era came from the
disgruntled voters who were tired of backing so-called conservatives,
only to watch them engage in the same wasteful spending and corrupt
dealings as the Democrats. Slightly more than half the House Republicans
may think they can justify the practice, but their words ring hollow,
echoing off the walls of that secret ballot box and amplified in the
emptiness left by the lack of transparency.
Pulling for Pork
As Liberty Nation’s Tim Donner
explained, “Earmarks soothed the savage beast and provided the answer
to the universal question: what’s in it for me? They were, quite simply,
at the heart of how business had always been conducted in Washington –
until 2010.”
The argument typically goes something like this:
Without earmarks, we have partisan gridlock in Congress. Allowing folks
to ask for spending provisions attached to bills that can fund pet
projects, repay special interests, or simply give a politician local
bragging rights in his or her district helps alleviate this. It gives
everyone the opportunity to have skin in the game, so to speak.
A Pig Is a Pig
This
is why President Trump even suggested bringing them back in 2018. But
it didn’t fly then and it likely won’t fly now with the voters. David
Axelrod, Barack Obama’s onetime political adviser, said that trading
money and favors made government a well-oiled machine. It sugar coats an
ugly truth: A pig is a pig, no matter how you dress it up – and a bribe
is a bribe, no matter what clever name you give it.
A legislative
process relying on greased palms to slip partisan bills by the
opposition is not the heart of the Republic the Founders built. From the
beginning, passing laws that affected the entire nation was supposed to
be a Herculean task – that’s what protects the people from being
devoured by the ever-ravenous beast known as government. For decades,
earmarks smoothed the process – and for decades, Democrats and
Republicans alike happily fed the beast, watching it grow year by year.
Repercussions for Republicans
Taking
earmarks will gain Republicans some control over spending. That’s true.
Some argue that earmarks don’t increase spending, as it simply
redirects money already being spent, but that argument doesn’t hold up
under scrutiny. One of the most poignant criticisms made is that if the
money isn’t needed to begin with for whatever project the opposition
wants to fund, simply cut it out of the bill – don’t take it as a bribe
and claim to not be part of the problem.
But is that real power
for the GOP, as the minority in a Democrat-controlled trifecta? The
House is all but a lost cause, of course, but the narrow margin in the
Senate gives the GOP some power, so long as the filibuster is not
significantly altered or erased. Senate Republicans haven’t decided –
or, at least, haven’t announced – whether they will allow earmarks, but
the Democrats have. Should Republicans allow it, it gives the Democrats
just enough power to siphon off the handful of GOP votes needed to pass
any bill they want, with the added bonus of selling it as “bipartisan.”
The
history of earmarks is rife with corruption and waste – and there’s no
reason to assume the future won’t be the same. Even claims that earmark
requests must be announced publicly fall flat after the lack of
transparency already demonstrated. Nevermind that secret ballot; you can
trust us to tell you the full truth from now on? That’s going to be a
tough sell. The next election cycle may feel like ages away, but
Republicans eager for some of that “skin in the game” may have a rude
awakening coming sooner than they think.
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