House Democratic leaders on Wednesday banned budget earmarks to private industry, ending a practice that has steered billions of dollars in no-bid contracts to companies and set off corruption scandals. ... The House ban came less than two weeks after the public release of an investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics laid bare the pay-to-play culture on Capitol Hill, particularly on the defense appropriations subcommittee. The report found that there was a “widespread perception” among the private-sector recipients of earmarks that giving political contributions to lawmakers on the panel helped secure the grants.Wow. Earmarks are rife with corruption? Who knew? [/sarcasm]
Of course the whole earmark process is ridden with corruption or, if not outright cash-in-the-freezer corruption, the more subtle "I'll get you the earmark and you'll be so grateful that you'll make a suitable campaign contribution" kind.
There may be a good earmark out there, sort of like the idea that there may be an honest mortgage broker, but they are few and far between. They ought to be banned outright.
I remember when "earmarks" meant something along the lines of:
ReplyDelete"and we'll earmark 20% of the spending in this bill for education."
Back in the good ole days (of a different type of scam - but at least there was enough of the shame factor still around to guarantee that the dirty deeds would be done with the curtains drawn).
Thanks for your reporting.
S
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If we ban earmarks, the power to allocate money leaves Congress and goes to the bureaucrats of the Executive Branch.
ReplyDeleteSo if I don't like how money is being spent, I have to wait for the next Presidential election. But in that election, our collective voice will be totally fragmented because we'll all have local interests that override the national ones. (Local interests always override national ones.)
This sounds like a good way to prevent populist sentiments from ever affecting an election again. I don't like earmarks, but I'll keep them, thanks.
Gee, Joe,
ReplyDeleteNo one said anything "bad" about "good" earmarks.
Except that as all politics is local, it looks like a knife fight from now on.
And the little guys always lose.
(Unless they emulate that corruption pustule Tom DeLay.)
S
This sounds like a good way to prevent populist sentiments from ever affecting an election again.
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It's only for the rest of this year. The pubs are looking for a good issue to run on.
ReplyDeleteWait until they realize that Israel's money is an earmark.