Congress gets its secret weapon back: earmarks

[SaysWho?]

Analysis: Congress just got its secret weapon back

WWW.CNN.COM

---

Buried within the 2,700-page omnibus spending bill unveiled early Wednesday that would fund the federal government through September is something called "member-directed spending." It might well be the single most important thing in the bill if you care about Congress actually passing legislation.

 

A little history:

 

Quote

But beginning in earnest with Arizona Sen. John McCain's 2008 campaign for president, earmarking began to be regarded as a bad thing. McCain was a longtime opponent of earmarks -- known derisively as "pork" to Beltway insiders -- and would regularly call out what he believed to be over-the-top pet projects inserted into bills by lawmakers.

"233 million for a bridge to nowhere," intoned a narrator in an ad McCain ran during that election. "Outrageous. Three million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Unbelievable. A million dollars for a Woodstock Museum -- in a bill sponsored by Hillary Clinton. Predictable. Who has the guts to stand up to wasteful government spending? One man. John McCain."

Although McCain lost that race, former House Speaker John Boehner, himself a longtime opponent of so-called "pork barrel spending," saw his chance. As part of Republicans' 2010 campaign for Congress, Boehner targeted the elimination of earmarks as a way to signal to the average voter that it was time to change the way Washington did business.

When Republicans retook the House majority in that election, Boehner did exactly as he had promised -- he got rid of earmarks entirely.

 

Quote

What happened, in practice, was that leaders in both parties lost leverage over their rank-and-file members. They no longer had a carrot to dangle in front of wavering members to get them to sign on to a piece of legislation where the vote was tight.

That loss of leverage was compounded by the rise of third-party groups -- led by super PACs -- over the past decade. Their ascension signaled a diminution in the power of political parties. No longer could party leaders overseeing campaign committees bend members to their will by offering -- or withholding -- support.

 

Quote

The simple fact is that without earmarks in the modern political climate, congressional leadership has no tools to cajole and convince lawmakers to be for anything. The default position has, therefore, been "no." Obstruction -- on everything -- has been the order of the day.

Now, just because earmarks are back doesn't mean legislation will be rolling through Congress immediately. But it does mean that party leaders now have at least some real ability to persuade their members on key bills. Which makes a world of difference.

 

[Uaarkson]

Meh

[Keyser_Soze]

But what if they got earwigs instead?

[Reputator]

I get what they're saying but I don't like the idea of these.

[brucoe]

The US has practically been built on the concept of earmarks and pork. The moment they tried to eliminate it, it was evident that all future legislation in Congress was going to suffer (unless you're an advocate for only a miniscule of legislation passing each session). The problem with earmarks is that a lot of foolish sounding legislation gets slipped into the bills, but the positive is that the important stuff actually gets passed. So, we'll end up with a few million being spent trying to figure out whether or not fish actually smile (an actual earmark that was passed) just so that what needs to be done gets done instead of tied up in endless fights between random members of Congress.

 

It wasn't a perfect system, but it was the system we created. Not always does throwing out the bad part of a system result in great results, as we've discovered with situations where one or two members of Congress can make sure that absolutely nothing gets done. Of course, if you're one of those "don't do anything and that's great" people, then everything's working as planned.

[Anathema-]

A tangible metric of influence and political skill. Earmarks are... good?

[SuperSpreader]

2 minutes ago, Anathema- said:

A tangible metric of influence and political skill. Earmarks are... good?

 

RIP John McCain