Earmarks: The end of congressional pork?

“Maybe the Republicans are listening, after all,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial. Tea Party activists won their first big power struggle with the GOP establishment this week, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he would bow to pressure to support a ban on earmarks. McConnell “and other old-guard Republicans” had initially resisted relinquishing earmarks, which enable congressmen and senators to funnel federal funds to pet projects in their own districts, such as Alaska’s famous “bridge to nowhere.” But facing an influx of Tea Party–backed Republicans into both houses, McConnell reversed himself, saying he doesn’t want to be guilty of “ignoring the wishes of the American people.” It’s a wise decision on both political and pragmatic grounds: From 1994—when Republicans won control of Congress—to 2005, the number of earmarks exploded from about 1,500 to about 14,000, “before voters ousted what had become the Grand Old Pork Party.” And though earmarks represent a small portion of federal spending, they serve as legal bribes to legislators “for passing trillion-dollar-plus budget bills.”

“The reality” of earmarks “doesn’t live up to the political hype,” said Newsday. Obviously, voters want spending cuts, but the $15.9 billion spent this year on earmarks amounts to less than 1 percent of the $3.7 trillion federal budget.

Earmarks have often been abused, but if the process is transparent, they allow lawmakers to “respond to local needs”—renovating a senior center, for example, or a worthy public-works project. A member of Congress has a “better sense of who can best prevent flood in New Orleans” than some federal formula, said Christopher Beam in Slate.com. For all the Tea Party obsession with earmarks, banning them will do little to shrink the deficit or balance the budget.

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You’re missing the point, said the San Jose Mercury News. True, earmarks “represent a tiny fraction of federal spending.” But they’ve “become a potent symbol of waste.” If Congress is to rein in the federal budget, it must begin somewhere. Why not start with earmarks? In backing this ban, congressional Republicans are “in rare agreement with” President Obama, “who’s been pressing for earmark reform for years.” That puts the ball in the Democrats’ court. “After the shellacking they just took,” liberal lawmakers “should jump at the opportunity to show they can work in a bipartisan way to increase public trust and transparency in government.”