Earmarking Reform

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Earmarking Reform

• Jennifer Gonzalez

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Introduction

• I will be speaking about earmarking. The term
  pork barrel is introduced in Chapter 12 of We
  The People and says Congress often uses pork
  barreling as an opportunity to provide direct
  benefits to their constituents. The most common
  form of pork barreling is earmarking.

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What is earmarking?

• Earmarking or pork barreling is a narrowly
  focused appropriation. A project in which funds
  are siphoned off for a particular project.

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What is Wrong with Earmarking?

• Many congressman use earmarks as a way to fund
  particular interests from highways to research
  grants for their home states. They use it as a
  way to approve private projects that would other
  wise be rejected.
• An example of this would when Alaskan law-makers
  won a 223 million appropriation for a single
  bridge between the town of Ketchikan and the even
  smaller Gravina island. Under pressure, the
  Bridge to Nowhere earmark was withdrawn.

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How Bad Is It? Where does the money come from?

• According to the nonpartisan congressional
  Research Service, the number of earmarks has
  grown from 4,155 valued at 29 billion in 1994 to
  14,211 worth 53 billion a decade later.
• The money comes from the taxpayers.
• Citizens Against Government waste , a watch dog
  group, estimated that last year earmarks cost
  taxpayers 27.3 billion, up from 10.1 billion in
  1995.

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Number of Pork Projects1995-2005
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How does this happen?

• Earmarks are supposed to go through a public
  process. Lawmakers, acting on a need in their
  districts or states, submit a written request to
  the appropriate congressional subcommittee and
  ask the panels members for supportin private
  and at an open hearing.
• Instead, projects many of which are never openly
  considered are handed out as favors in exchange
  for votes on key pieces of legislation.

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How does it happen?

• Earmarks are also slipped into legislation at the
  very end of the process- during House-senate
  conference deliberations.
• Such last-minute earmarks are routinely included
  in a conference report that cannot be tampered
  with before final passage.

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How did it all start?

• Many people say that the proliferation of
  earmarks started after Republicans took control
  of the House in 1994. Then- speaker Newt Gingrich
  a republican of Georgia directed appropriators to
  help GOP lawmakers with tough reelection races by
  giving them projects to boast about back home.
  (Birnbaum)
• Thanks to Gingrich, lawmakers are taking
  advantage of the system by trying to get their
  pet projects passed at the expense of the
  American tax payers.

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How bad is it?

• Ronald Regan vetoes the highway bill in 1984
  because it had 152 pork barrel projects in it. He
  said I havent seen this much pork since I gave
  out blue ribbons at the Iowa state fair. (John
  McCain)
• Compare that with todays numbers, just in the
  last highway bill their were 6,140 projects.
  (John McCain)

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Pork Trends, 1991-2005
                                   
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What is being done?

• After last years cash-for-favors scandal earmark
  reform is becoming more common in legislation
  offered by the Democrats and Republicans
• President Bush asked for a line-item veto
  authority which would give the power to kill
  individual projects that he felt unnecessary
  rather than vetoing the entire bill that it is
  attached with it.

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What is being done?

• Senator Joseph I. Lieberman and John McCain have
  proposed legislation the Bipartisan Lobbying
  Transparency Act of 2005 which would require
  more frequent and detailed disclosure of lobbying
  activities.
• The bill also takes the first steps to uncovering
  the practice of grass-roots lobbying investments
  in lawmakers home districts. The senate bill
  will make it harder but not impossible for
  members to quietly earmark pork projects in the
  budget at the behest of lobbyists.

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Will the pork survive?

• This idea of reform is still sadly a new idea and
  only time will tell if congress is moving in the
  right direction to end this corruption.
• How much money will taxpayers have to spend on
  such pet projects before it is stopped?

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Works Cited

• Branigin, William. McCain to Reform Pork Barrel
  Politics. Jan. 25, 2006. Retrieved on March 18,
  2006. www.washingtonpost.com
• Moore, Stephen. Reform, Reform, Reform. Wall
  Street Journal. Nov. 26, 2005. Retrieved on March
  16, 2006. www.opinionjournal.com
• Newscenter. Senator McCain Introduces Lobbying
  Reform Bill.Dec.16, 2005. Retrieved on March 18,
  2006. www.mccain.senate.gov

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Works Cited

• Pazniokas, Mark. McCain Rell Reforms Model for
  U.S.. March 18, 2006.Retrieved on March 18,
  2006. www.courant.com/news/politics
• Thomma, Steven. Congress Backs Off From Lobbying
  Limits Knight Ridder Newspapers. March 17, 2006.
  Retrieved on March 18, 2006. www.realcities.com/ml
  d/krwashington
• Weisman, Jonathan. Lobbying changes Divide House
  GOP. Feb. 2, 2006. Retrieved on March 18, 2006.
  www.washingtonpost.com

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Works Cited

• www.cagw.com Both chart and graph.
• www.duplexdude.typepad.com Picture of swimming
  pigs.
• www.theinternetparty.org Cartoon money pig.
• www.veteransatwork.com Cartoon pork picture.