Are Earmarks Necessary?

Represenative Michele Bachmann, a Republican from Minnesota, is against earmarks. But not when it comes to transportation. “Advocating for transportation projects for ones district in my mind does not equate to an earmark.”

Georgia Republican Representative Jack Kingston agrees. “How do you handle [transportation] without earmarks, since that’s a heavily earmarked bill?” he says.

I don’t think these people got the message last month. Here are a few pertinent points about transportation earmarks.

1. Earmarks are relatively new. The federal government has been handing out transportation money for at least 80 years, but there were virtually no earmarks in transportation bills before 1982. Somehow, transportation managed to work without earmarks for at least 50 years.
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2. Earmarks are, almost by definition, a waste of money. Since the feds give money to the states only after the states write plans determining that the money will be spent as effectively as possible, earmarks are only needed if the member of Congress who puts in the earmark wants the state to build something that the state thinks isn’t worthwhile. Some 80 percent of earmarks are for projects that are not on state priority lists; the other 20 percent didn’t have to be earmarked.

3. Because federal earmarks often only partially funds a project, and because the states didn’t want to do those projects in the first place, about half of all earmarks never get spent. (Which actually allows members of Congress to create more earmarks than it has money to spend.)

Here’s the rub for the states. If Congress puts an earmark in one of its hexennial transportation authorization bills, and the state doesn’t spend the money, Congress can rescind the earmark in the next reauthorization bill and the state keeps the money anyway. But if Congress rescinds the earmark between reauthorizations, the earmark goes into the general pot. So states want to keep the earmarks, even for projects they don’t want to build, at least until the next reauthorization.

All this is just more evidence that our government has become to big to effectively manage. Our goal should not be to just end earmarks or stop a few subsidies, but to reduce the size and scope of federal programs in transportation (and many other fields). Otherwise it is too easy for members of Congress to hide behind arcane rules and traditions.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

18 Responses to Are Earmarks Necessary?

  1. Frank says:

    No.

    Another question: Are they constitutional? (And none of this “Congress is authorized to pass laws” excuses. The laws Congress passes are subject to constitutional scrutiny.)

    And OT: From Paleo-Future blog: Driverless car of the future (1957)

  2. C. P. Zilliacus says:

    The Antiplanner wrote:

    Represenative Michele Bachmann, a Republican from Minnesota, is against earmarks. But not when it comes to transportation. “Advocating for transportation projects for ones district in my mind does not equate to an earmark.”

    So, in other words, Bachmann is in favor of earmarks, in spite of her claims to the contrary. Just like her fellow Republican, Sarah Palin, was in favor of federal government earmarks (such as the “Bridge to Nowhere”) before it was exposed to public scrutiny.

  3. bennett says:

    For a couple of decades now earmarks have replaced collegial legislating. The two sides hate each other so much the only way to pass any votes is to throw your enemy a bone (bone being a truckload of cash). It’s how deals are done.

    Not all earmarks are wasteful, but the system in no doubt corrupt. What if (a big what if, seeing as congresspersons seem to want as little transparency as possible) there was an accessible website listing each congressperson, the amount, in $$$, that they have asked for in earmarks and what projects those dollars went to or did not go to. Maybe if there was transparency and accountability earmarks would be used for good and not evil.

    As for Bachmann and the likes, the only thing worse than a tax-and-spend democrat is a no-tax(aka borrow)-and-spend republican.

    On a related note, I heard on NPR that there is overwhelming bipartisan support for the elimination of the Congressional Ethics Commission. What a surprise!

  4. bennett says:

    Frank said: “Are they constitutional? (And none of this “Congress is authorized to pass laws” excuses. The laws Congress passes are subject to constitutional scrutiny.)”

    At this point I think the burden is on you to prove they’re not constitutional (and none of this “the Constitution doesn’t explicitly say anything about earmarks,” excuses). I’m interested to hear your argument, as I’m also not a fan of earmarks.

  5. Dan says:

    Crazy Bachmann also stated that tax cuts shouldn’t count as part of a deficit. She is anything but credible and poster child for how that wing cannot govern either.

    DS

  6. metrosucks says:

    And the left-wing planning troll/shill speaketh again and amazes us all with its non-partisanship and wisdom

  7. Frank says:

    Frank said: “Are they constitutional? (And none of this “Congress is authorized to pass laws” excuses. The laws Congress passes are subject to constitutional scrutiny.)”

    At this point I think the burden is on you to prove they’re not constitutional (and none of this “the Constitution doesn’t explicitly say anything about earmarks,” excuses). I’m interested to hear your argument, as I’m also not a fan of earmarks.

    I didn’t say claim they were unconstitutional; I asked, and that wasn’t a rhetorical question. My inclination is to say they’re not, largely because I, like the Anti-Federalist Founders, see the Constitution as a restriction of government power; the federal government can only exercise the powers given to it by the people.

    Consider Jefferson, who throughout his life argued that the federal government could only exercise enumerated powers:

    “They are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose. To consider the latter phrase not as describing the purpose of the first, but as giving a distinct and independent power to do any act they please which might be for the good of the Union, would render all the preceding and subsequent enumerations of power completely useless. It would reduce the whole instrument to a single phrase, that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please… Certainly no such universal power was meant to be given them. It was intended to lace them up straitly within the enumerated powers and those without which, as means, these powers could not be carried into effect.

    Jefferson also talks about granting bounties, but since that power is not enumerated, an amendment granting that power would be needed.

    More specific to earmarks, Jefferson wrote:

    “Have you considered all the consequences of your proposition respecting post roads? I view it as a source of boundless patronage to the Executive, jobbing to members of Congress and their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money. …other revenues will soon be called into their aid, and it will be the source of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always get most who are meanest.”

    So, back to my original question? Are earmarks constitutional? I’m open to discussion.(However, if you believe the constitution is a “living” document, we probably won’t get anywhere. Funny that some consider a legally binding contract to be malleable.)

  8. Borealis says:

    I don’t see how earmarks are unconstitutional. Like them or hate them, but Congress is given the authority to appropriate funds in Article 1 of the US Constitution. That is a huge power, but what constraints are in the Constitution to prohibit earmarks?

    Earmarks are an appropriations law battle between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch. All federal funds have to be appropriated by Congress. Earmarks are Congress specifying where the appropriated funds go. Appropriated funds that are not earmarked are still appropriated, but the Executive Branch is given discretion to gets to decide where they go.

  9. Andrew says:

    Antiplanner:

    “Earmarks are relatively new. The federal government has been handing out transportation money for at least 80 years, but there were virtually no earmarks in transportation bills before 1982.”

    Before 1982, most federal highway funds were dedicated to completing the well-defined Interstate system. It was not necessary to earmark funds since everyone already knew where most of the funds would be going.

  10. Andrew says:

    Borealis:

    “Earmarks are an appropriations law battle between the Executive Branch and the Legislative Branch.”

    Its even simpler than that. Earmarks are spending directly controlled by our elected representatives. Formula spending is directly controlled by the Federal Bureaucracy under rules it makes up on its own construction of vague laws passed by Congress.

    The Earmark debate is like the debate over Federal Regulation and Administrative Law Judges and Courts. With regulations, the Federal Bureaucracy creates and enforces laws that are not voted on by our representatives with sometimes only the most tenuous connection to some vague congressional edict authorizing the commencement of a program.

  11. Frank says:

    “I don’t see how earmarks are unconstitutional. Like them or hate them, but Congress is given the authority to appropriate funds in Article 1 of the US Constitution. That is a huge power, but what constraints are in the Constitution to prohibit earmarks?”

    Yes, according to the Supreme Court’s later decisions, that is true. Funny that the Supreme Court, a branch of government, would through time, as government grew, interpret these clauses more expansively. (I again say the Judicial Branch is the Constitution’s largest failing. Take Plessy or Korematsu as one of many monumental failings of the Judicial Branch.)

    It all comes down to ideology: statism or freedom. Hamilton and Adams or Madison and Jefferson. I clearly agree with the interpretation given by the latter (the authors of our founding documents).

    So, given the SCOTUS precedents, earmarks are just the way “business” is done in DC.

    Someone earlier asked for a website that lists earmarks. Here it is: OpenSecrets.org. I was doing some research on Orin Hatch, and found all these earmarks.

    “What the hell is a laser phalanx?” I wondered. Thanks to the Internets, I learned it’s for shooting down robotic aircraft.

  12. bennett says:

    Frank,

    Thanks for the link. Utterly astounding. I’m hyping this as much as I can.

  13. prk166 says:

    “Crazy Bachmann also stated that tax cuts shouldn’t count as part of a deficit. She is anything but credible and poster child for how that wing cannot govern either.” – DS

    Source? I can’t find where she said that. It does look like she recently said that the lack of raising a tax is not the same as spending money one does have in their pocket. That is, failing to get a $1,000 raise in salary at work is not the same as racking up $1,000 on the credit card.

    http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2010/07/bachmann-pay-for-unemployment-benefits-not-tax-cuts.html

  14. Dan says:

    It would be nice to say Bachmann is like the crazy aunt who shows up at Thanksgiving and we all put up with her for a day, but she shows up for dinner once a week, seemingly. Source, apparently this kookiness has happened several times on nat’l teevee in the past week or so. This behavior has cost her a committee chair or vice-chair.

    DS

  15. metrosucks says:

    Dan is like the pedophile uncle who is a professional planner and who shows up at every family meeting and no one says what a loser and pervert he is, but they all keep their distance, that’s for sure.

  16. prk166 says:

    Dan, I’m not seeing the kookiness. She’s essentially arguing that failing to get a $1,000 raise in salary at work is not the same as racking up $1,000 on the credit card. Now maybe that should be considered to be adding to the deficit. But it’s hardly kooky to acknowledge that spending is different from tax rates. Or have people who consider themselves to be on the left managed to loose their ability to understand view points that differ from their own like far too many on the right?

  17. MJ says:

    I don’t often throw words like “lunatic” and “hypocrite” around lightly, but in Bachmann’s case they both fit. Much of what comes out of her mouth simply does not make sense. Much like Palin on the economy, her remarks about earmarks reveal that she clearly does not understand the issue.

    She might not get a high-ranking committee post, but you might as well get used to seeing her face in Congress (and on the news). She is indestructible in her district — the people in her district have repeatedly voted her back to Congress. They are hopelessly confused and somehow manage to see her as some kind of anti-Washington figure (kind of ironic, isn’t it?).

  18. MJ says:

    prk,

    I’m not sure I follow your analogy. A tax cut is not so much like failing to get a raise (which should appropriately be compared to holding spending at current levels) as it is akin to voluntarily forgoing part of your salary. That analogy has problems too, I know, but it seems a bit more logically consistent.

    The problem with a policy of tax cuts without spending cuts is the same as the problem of financing government by taxing “the rich”. In both cases, it gives most voters the impression that government-provided goods are “free” (they are not, of course) and weakens any incentives for accountability and good governance.

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