Nerve Endings Firing Away

While I agree on the concept of earmark reform, I don’t see it happening anytime soon in spite of either candidates promises in the previous elections. Why? Simply because earmarks are the cornerstone of political hankering and form a big portion of compromises over political deals in Washington, DC in the spirit of “I’ll vote for the project in your constituency if you vote for mine.” Politically also, it makes sense for elected representatives to obtain as much federal dollars as possible so that they can go home and claim credit in the next election. So why the brouhaha?

John McCain, one of the fiercest proponent against earmarks calls such spending ‘wasteful’. But are all earmarks wasteful? According to McCain probably yes but plenty of his colleagues in the Congress disagree. In fact most of the spending that McCain has been deriding as wasteful has been proven to be justified upon close examination. But even if you consider all spending is wasteful then Republican earmarks constitute about 40% of the total which given their representation in this Congress is proportional. Irrespective of party affiliation, every member has his finger in the pie. If you check the list of all members [Excel spreadsheet] requesting these earmarks, you will note that “Republican Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi tops the list, with $470 million in earmarks for himself and his colleagues. Next up is Cochran’s seatmate — Republican Roger Wicker, hitting the scales at $390 million” [source]. Talk about rich blue states funding a poor red state. So much for the abhorence for wealth redistribution, eh?

So how do they justify these earmarks? Lindsey Graham (R-SC) when reminded of his earmarks said, his spending proposals had merit, and were therefore worthwhile: “I think I should have the ability as a United States senator to direct money back to my state as long as it’s transparent and it makes sense.” So basically spending that Graham appropriates is ‘worthwhile’ whereas any other spending is ‘wasteful’? It reminds me of that classic line we used to use in school – tera khoon khoon aur mera khoon Coca-Cola? In fact, the cherry on the top is that these Republicans are urging Obama to veto the bill when in fact, it is a legislation drafted by the Congress. Asking Obama to veto a bill filled with your members pork barrel spending when you failed to do the same to a Republican president not more than six months ago is plain hypocritical.

I see a simple solution for Republicans if they want any moral standing to criticize earmark spending. Drop all your earmark requests for this year and then challenge Obama to veto the bill. Heck, I’ll support you if you do that. Otherwise it is plain demagoguery and scoring cheap political points.