When it comes to earmarks -- or more specifically, the much-touted ban on earmarks -- people in the know said that despite the show, other ways would be found to keep the money flowing to lawmakers' special pet projects. Essentially, all we're talking about is finding other, more creative ways to restrict how money is spent, but that don't name a special project directly. How can you do it?
Well, there are all sorts of things you can do. You can, of course, do things like fund a program that the Pentagon doesn't actually want, but just happens to be built in a particular Congressional district. Like, say, your own. Or in the district of your buddy, the Speaker of the House:
But buried deeply in these 359 pages of ugly surprises is a provision that would mean one community in America would do a lot better than all of the others. The legislation added an estimated $450 million for a particular bit of defense spending that the Department of Defense did not ask for and does not want.
The item is a down payment that would obligate the federal government to future payments that could well be three or four times the increased spending added to this particular piece of legislation, with a big portion of the funds flowing to two cities in Ohio—Cincinnati, where Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) grew up, and Dayton, the largest city in his congressional district.
The money will go to pay the costs to General Electric Co.’s General Electric Aviation unit and the British-owned Rolls Royce Group for their development of an engine for the new Joint Strike Fighter aircraft—money that looks, feels, and smells very much like an earmark.
Just to add a little interest, here's a twist that's always been with us. It's never been considered an earmark, per se, but it's an interesting way to control the way money is spent. It's different, of course, in that it actually prohibits certain federal spending, so it's not looked upon as "pork." It doesn't actually save any money, just as eliminating earmarks doesn't save any money, since both chunks of money just get bounced back into the accounts controlled by the various appropriations subcommittees (remember those 302(b) allocations?) to be spent elsewhere. But it's at least interesting to take a look at the sorts of micromanaging members sometimes like to engage in.
Here are a few examples, being offered as amendments to H.R. 1 in the next few days:
Offered By: Mr. Camp
Amendment No. 24: At the end of the bill, before the short
title, insert the following:
Sec. _ None of the funds made available by this Act may be
used for the opening of the locks at the Thomas J. O'Brien
Lock and Dam or the Chicago River controlling Works, except
in the event of flooding or as needed to protect public
health and safety.
Offered By: Mr. Garrett
Amendment No. 31: At the end of the bill (before the short
title), insert the following:
Sec. _. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to demolish structures within the Delaware Water Gap.
Permissible? Absolutely. They're called "limiting amendments," and they're an exercise of the power of the purse that generally aren't regarded as earmarks because, as I mentioned earlier, though they don't save any money, they prevent spending on particular items rather than funnel money to them. But they're just as parochial in nature, and often override (sometimes for good reason) decisions made by executive departments and independent agencies that rub someone the wrong way. Which of course was the original point of earmarking. That is, that the people who hold the actual power of the purse disagreed with or otherwise didn't trust decisions made by or authorized to be made by agency or executive department personnel (aka, "bureaucrats").
Usually, though, these limiting amendments are used a little more broadly, and are aimed at programs lawmakers don't like.
Offered By: Mr. Luetkemeyer
Amendment No. 47: At the end of the bill (before the short
title), insert the following:
Sec. _. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used for the study of the Missouri River Projects
authorized in section 108 of the Energy and Water Development
and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2009 (division C of
Public Law 111-8).
Offered By: Mr. Stearns
Amendment No. 9: At the end of the bill (before the short
title), insert the following:
Sec. _. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to implement the Report and Order of the Federal
Communications Commission relating to the matter of
preserving the open Internet and broadband industry practices
(FCC 10-201, adopted by the Commission on December 21, 2010).
Do Democrats do this, too? Oh my, yes.
Offered By: Ms. McCollum
Amendment No. 50: At the end of the bill (before the short
title), insert the following new section:
Sec. _. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used by the Department of Defense for sponsorship of
NASCAR race cars.
Offered By: Mr. Matheson
Amendment No. 38: At the end of the bill (before the short
title), insert the following:
Sec. _. None of the funds appropriated by this Act may be
used for the Community Connect broadband grant program
administered by the Rural Utilities Service of the Department
of Agriculture.
Are these amendments out of bounds? Not at all. Hypocritical? Well, certainly not if so long as the focus on earmarks is about how money appears to be getting spent, as opposed to producing actual savings. But if there's any problem at all with them, it's that they're part and parcel of the same exercise: direct Congressional control of what projects do and don't get funded. That's either in bounds or out of bounds. Not a little bit of both. You could certainly argue that affirmative choices about spending ought to be left to the bureaucrats, while negative choices about what specific things don't deserve funding ought to remain the province of the Congress. And that might even be a pretty popular position. But it's not the role assigned to the Congress under the Constitution, and it's a pretty silly way to divvy up the job responsibilities.
The real point of the post, though, isn't to decide what sorts of directed spending are and aren't righteous. It's just to point out the various ways in which Congress uses appropriations bills to micromanage spending, for better or for worse. That's what they do. It's perhaps even what they're supposed to do. And as long as they're doing it, we should be aware of it and how it's done. And now we are!