Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (3521)	1/28/2006 12:25:17 PM
From: Peter Dierks	Respond to of 71588

Cured Pork Remedies for earmarking and other Congressional addictions. Saturday, January 28, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST Just when you thought pork barreling couldn't get any more amusing, along comes Citizens Against Government Waste, which reports that someone in Congress has diverted $2 million in the Navy's fiscal 2006 operations accounts to fund a Michigan-based company doing research on a "waterfree urinal." Hard as it is to believe, no Member is stepping forward to take credit for this urgent national priority. Now for the good news. Amid the humiliating publicity about the bridge to nowhere in Alaska, maple syrup research in Vermont and blueberry subsidies in Massachusetts, nearly everyone in Congress is suddenly swearing off pork. All three Republicans running for House Majority Leader have pledged to end the abuse of "earmarks." And so has Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, though she too has used her political clout to steer millions of dollars to her California district. Democrats insist they can do a better job than Republicans of protecting taxpayers from parochial spending on Capitol Hill. And it's hard to imagine they could do worse. The number of special-interest earmarks inserted into spending bills has quadrupled in five years to 14,000, and the price tag has more than doubled--to $27.1 billion last year. Defenders of pork-barrel projects contend they are a trivial expense in a $2.6 trillion budget. Sadly, that's true, but it speaks volumes about the culture of overspending in Washington that $27,100,000,000 is dismissed as a rounding error. Unfathomably large spending bills, with hundreds upon hundreds of pages of line-item expenditures, have become normal budgeting practice in Congress. In this environment, $10 million giveaways start to seem like loose change. So what can be done, apart from denying Congress the money in the first place by keeping taxes low? Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona and Senators Tom Coburn and John McCain have one good idea, which is to bring more transparency to earmarking. They would require that every earmark be specifically included in the text of the legislation Congress is voting on. We'd also like to see a requirement that every earmark list its main Congressional sponsor and its purpose (other than to re-elect the Member). Appropriators who control the spending process complain that this transparency would make the legislative process "unwieldy," which would only be a good thing. The potential for embarrassment might deter Members from inserting the pork at all. And if they go ahead anyway, the sight of Dr. Coburn exposing these projects on the Senate floor would be both good theater and politically hygienic. If Republicans were smart--notice the subjunctive--they'd go much further and pledge a pork moratorium for the rest of the year. This "zero tolerance for earmarks" idea is modeled after the famous "broken windows" concept of fighting crime by cleaning up petty vandalism. If Members can't abuse the process on small items, they might be less willing to do it on entitlements as well. But the best idea would be to bring the President back into the spending equation. As it stands, he proposes a budget and then has no influence until he decides to sign or veto a giant spending bill. A Constitutional version of the line-item veto has been a money-saver in many of the states, where more than 40 governors have the authority to strike individual items from spending bills. When Bill Clinton had the line-item veto (for one year, 1997, before the Supreme Court struck it down), he used it to save several billion dollars. There's another way to accomplish the same goal: Repeal the 1974 Budget Act in toto. This disastrous law, enacted by arguably the most liberal Congress in history, was designed to make it easier to spend, and one of the ways it did so was by stripping the President of the power to impound funds. The impoundment power was used by every President from Jefferson to Nixon to refuse to spend money if the funds were unnecessary. FDR used it to cancel billions of dollars that had been appropriated for domestic agencies so that every available dollar could be devoted to the war. The Constitution gives Congress the "power of the purse" through its authority to "appropriate funds." But it also gives the executive branch the broad authority to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed," and historically that has meant the power not to spend money when the funds are not necessary. Whether either party is even modestly sincere in these born-again pledges to stop earmark abuse is an open question. If they are, they will make earmarking reform the centerpiece of any "lobbying reform." In the scandal of disgraced California Republican Duke Cunningham, $80 million of earmarked pork was the quid pro quo for the bribe. Several other lawmakers are now under investigation for similar pork-for-cash transactions. Mr. Flake states the point well: "Pork is the currency of corruption on Capitol Hill." If Republicans don't get that message soon, their majority may be the first thing voters flush down one of those waterless toilets. opinionjournal.com