The national debt stands at nearly $12 trillion — a record, but not one that elicits pride. Yet, long before the debt reached unfathomable levels — almost $39,000 for every U.S. citizen — the public and politicians bellyached about congressional spending called “earmarks.”
“Earmarks” get their name from the practice of branding the ears of cattle to identify ownership. They represent pet projects stuffed by lawmakers into the federal budget — often during committee hearings on bills. The lawmakers do it to gain popularity back home, and the process — because of the way it works — ensures the earmarks remain in the budget plan: “You support mine, and I’ll support yours.”
Likewise, when it comes to final budget approval, the conversation goes like this: “You cut my earmark, and maybe I won’t support a much more significant bill on which you need my vote.”
Of course, the president cannot do much with earmarks when handed a budget to sign, because presidents do not get a line-item veto. So for years, presidents and party leaders have railed about earmarks but nothing changes.
But should it change?
Yes, federal lawmakers take an oath to serve the greater good of the country. But lawmakers get elected by folks in their home states and districts. If they run for office, they know they have a duty to use congressional leverage to bring goodies to the voters at home.
Not all earmarks represent useless or frivolous projects. And as a percentage of the entire federal budget, even at billions of dollars, they represent a drop in the spending bucket — approximately 2 percent in the 2009 budget, reported Bloomberg News.
Would the budget become tighter without them? Of course. Would the national debt drop if they got cut? Probably not.
No, the big-ticket items that pushed that debt into the financial stratosphere don’t have anything to do with earmarks. You can look to economic stimulus packages, war, entitlement programs and government subsidies for the answer to that debt level.
Yes, maybe like you do, I cringe when I see proposed earmark spending on something such as “$400,000 to combat bullying at schools in Montana (and) $2.2 million for the Center for Grape Genetics in Geneva, N.Y.,” as Bloomberg reported.
But with the national debt growing at an estimated $3.94 billion a day since 2007, I think we need to tag the ears of those things that really blow up the debt to identify them for cutting.
Resources:
- www.brillig.com/debt_clock/...
- http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
- www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGateway/...
- http://earmarks.omb.gov/
- www.bloomberg.com/apps/...
- www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/...
- www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599/...
- www.npr.org/templates/story/...
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