McCain's Phony Earmark Ploy

By Lindsay Beyerstein, AlterNet. Posted September 11, 2008.

McCain promises to slash earmarks and save us money. But earmarks are
a tiny fraction of the federal budget -- less than 1 percent in 2008.

If elected, John McCain pledges to veto any bill with earmarks. McCain
touts his opposition to earmarks as a crusade against corruption and
waste. However, some observers suspect that McCain's pledge to fight
earmarks is just another power grab for the executive branch.

"I got an old ink pen, my friends, and the first pork-barrel-laden
earmark, big spending bill that comes across my desk, I will veto it.
You will know their names. I will make them famous, and we'll stop
this corruption," McCain said at a campaign stop in Washington, D.C.,
this week.

McCain claims that eliminating earmarks could save the federal
government $100 billion over two years without cutting funding for
federal agencies. This claim is dubious at best. If McCain were to
make good on his promise, it would effectively be an assault on the
power of the legislative branch. "No president likes earmarks because
they impinge on the latitude of the executive branch to spend on the
things they want to fund," says Scott Lilly, a senior fellow at the
Center for American Progress who has written extensively on earmarks.

So, just what are these earmarks we hear so much about? It turns out,
even the experts aren't sure. Basically, an earmark is money that's
directed for a specific program or project. When McCain rails against
earmarks, it's safe to say that he's only objecting to money targeted
by Congress, not money set aside by the president or requested by
federal agencies that serve under the executive branch.

"It's hard to say how much federal money is spent on earmarks because
there is no formal or widely accepted definition," says James Horney,
director of federal fiscal policy at the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities. Horney notes that when the nonpartisan Congressional
Research Service tried to estimate the amount of money spent through
earmarks, the analysts had to come up with a different definition for
each of the 13 appropriations bills they studied.

Even McCain's advisers aren't sure where he got the $100 billion
figure, but the number is probably from the CRS study, which concluded
that the federal government spends about $67 billion dollars a year on
earmarks, an unusually high estimate. The number is so high because
the study counted virtually every targeted expenditure as an earmark.
For example, Horney explains that the CRS study counted "practically
all our foreign aid money" as an earmark because the appropriations
bill sets aside different pots of money for different countries. "Aid
to Israel is specified in that bill," says Horney. "That's almost
certainly not what John McCain is talking about. He doesn't want to
cut aid to Israel."

Defense appropriations and foreign aid account for the lion's share of
the $67 billion. Given McCain's pledge not to cut defense spending,
it's unclear how he could save $50 billion a year by eliminating
earmarks.

Earmarks are additions to appropriations bills that specify how that
money is going to be spent. Typically, these riders don't authorize
new spending. Let's say an appropriations bill sets aside $500 million
for road construction. A member might add an earmark stipulating that
$10 million of that money will be spent on a road in his district.
Eliminating the earmark wouldn't save money overall because that $10
million will go to road projects one way or the other. The only
question is who will choose which roads will be built. When the
earmark for the infamous Bridge to Nowhere was canceled, Sarah Palin's
administration spent that money on other transportation projects.

If earmarks were abolished, the president and his appointees at
federal agencies would decide which roads to build. The argument for
taking discretion away from Congress and giving it to the president
and federal agencies is that dispassionate experts can make the
decision with the good of the whole country in mind, whereas
legislators have a vested interest in securing money for their own
districts.

But Horney argues that while expert input is valuable in some cases,
the president can be just as politicized as Congress when it comes to
spending. "It's not clear to me that it's more democratic or better to
have all the decisions made by the president and federal agencies,
instead of elected representatives," he says.

Only a fraction of federal spending is allocated as earmarks in any
case. Lilly estimates that earmarks account for "less than 2 percent
of discretionary federal spending and a little more than half of 1
percent of the annual federal budget." "None of this adds up to big
money," Horney stresses. "The Office of Management and Budget's latest
estimate says that the earmarks in 2008 totaled $16.5 billion, or
six-tenths of 1 percent of the budget."

McCain is doing his best to equate earmarks with wasteful spending.
Certainly, earmarks are used to steer money toward legislators' home
districts, and there have been some well-publicized cases in which
those dollars were not spent wisely. However, part of a legislator's
job is to be an advocate for his or her district. If politicians bring
home the bacon, constituents are more likely to send them back to
Washington. That's democracy.

Earmarks are frequently derided as "pork" and "pet projects." But
earmarked spending is only as wise or as wasteful as the project
itself. If you don't like the project or the politician, you can say
he's cadging federal dollars to get re-elected. If you like the
project and support the politician, you say that the earmarker is
doing his job by looking out for constituents.

Representatives may have a better idea what their constituents need
than bureaucrats in D.C. Lawmakers work closely with state and local
leaders to find out what their districts need. As mayor of Wasilla and
later as governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin worked closely with Rep. Don
Young and Sen. Ted Stevens to secure tens of millions of dollars in
earmarks for her tiny town.

Earmarks support libraries, police departments, schools and
laboratories across the country. They also fund giveaways to
well-connected corporations, favors to campaign contributors and
boondoggles like the notorious Bridge to Nowhere. Legislators are now
more accountable for the earmarks they sponsor, thanks to tougher
transparency requirements instituted in 2007. Ultimately, it's up to
the electorate to decide whether a representative is making good
decisions.

"It's way too simplistic to say that earmarks are a bad thing," Horney
says.

What would be the alternative to earmarks? If they were eliminated,
Congress would have to defer to the president and federal agencies to
decide how to spend the money those agencies allocated. It's not clear
that this would result in better decisions or greater fiscal
responsibility. The Bush administration has packed federal agencies
with political hacks seeking to advance the president's agenda.

Lilly questions whether McCain is serious about his campaign promise
to veto all bills with earmarks. "Previous presidents have found that
they had a lot more to worry about than the 2 percent of discretionary
spending that was earmarked," he says.

By focusing on earmarks, McCain can appear tough and fiscally
responsible while ignoring much more lucrative perks for special
interests, such as corporate tax credits and tax cuts for the wealthy.
So-called earmark reform is just another attempt to consolidate power
in the hands of the president at the expense of Congress.

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endorsements. The opinions expressed by our writers are their own.

Lindsay Beyerstein is a New York writer blogging at
majikthise.typepad.com