As he signed a $410 billion spending bill that Republicans hammered for its thousands of earmarks, President Obama unveiled new proposals to shed sunlight on the practice that’s known as either “pork” or “congressionally directed spending” — depending on whether you’re talking to its critics or its defenders.
Earmarks have undoubtedly been misused and abused over the years, both by disgraced lawmakers (see Cunningham, Randy “Duke”) and lobbyists (see Abramoff, Jack). The process’ inherent risk of influence-peddling makes it no easy task to defend earmarks — and sure enough, Obama’s attempt to defend the practice fell flat with its chief Senate critics, Russ Feingold (D-WI) and John McCain (R-AZ).
Feingold and McCain’s unmoved reactions to the presidential earmark fueled some critical media coverage, with the Politico headlining its story “Obama goes soft on pork”.
Did Obama offer little more than a band-aid on the growth of earmarks?
As The Nation pointed out yesterday in a well-reasoned defense of the practice, doing away with earmarks would effectively shift the power to misuse the federal purse from Congress to state-level officials. That concern surfaced during debate over the stimulus, which Obama successfully kept free of earmarks.
Feingold has a specific priority for earmark reform: requiring that each earmarked project be authorized by Congress before specific money is appropriated. That’s an admirable goal, but fulfilling it would consume wildly unrealistic amounts of time in a Capitol building that’s already nearly paralyzed by partisan maneuvering.
In the end, perhaps Obama’s biggest omission on earmarks was the naked hypocrisy that his administration rarely noted in the open. Many of the lawmakers from both parties who love to blast earmarks make an exception for the “pork” that they themselves have requested (see Kyl, Jon).
The non-partisan Taxpayers for Common Sense (TCS) offered a damning statistic, finding that 28 of the 35 senators who opposed the $410 billion spending bill had earmarks of their own within the bill, but the Obama team didn’t make any hay from the TCS numbers … thus missing a chance to undercut some of their critics.
