So NOW you care about earmarks Mr. President?
Posted on January 29, 2008
From the SOTU:
The people’s trust in their Government is undermined by congressional earmarks — special interest projects that are often snuck in at the last minute, without discussion or debate. Last year, I asked you to voluntarily cut the number and cost of earmarks in half. I also asked you to stop slipping earmarks into committee reports that never even come to a vote. Unfortunately, neither goal was met. So this time, if you send me an appropriations bill that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half, I will send it back to you with my veto. And tomorrow, I will issue an Executive Order that directs Federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not voted on by the Congress. If these items are truly worth funding, the Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote.
So where was this Executive Order threat in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007? Too little, too late. Earmarks, which two-thirds of Americans oppose and are an absolute betrayal of the American people, should have been OUTLAWED long ago, but under Bush the number of earmarks grew to 11,900 in 2007. In 1996, there were 3055. There were 499 in 1992. Seven…7…in 1980.
» Filed Under Elections, News, Politics As Usual
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7 Responses to “So NOW you care about earmarks Mr. President?”
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Seriously. He lost all credibility on this issue years ago. I voted for him, but now I despise the man.
Thank you for an excellent post on an otherwise laughable website.
It’s a red herring anyways. Earmarks aren’t the problem.
Ya know how much money we’d save if we removed every earmark? $0. Earmarks just determine how the money is spent. The absence of them just leaves the department secretaries with full discretion.
To reign in spending, you have to attack departmental appropriations.
“Earmarks just determine how the money is spent.”
That’s not important, Jeff?
I’m not saying that earmarks are the ONLY federal spending problem, but they ARE a big problem. They encourage corruption. They ARE self-definitionally CORRUPTION. Many are added as extra-budget items, so unless they are ADDED, the money is not spent on those unconstitutional pork projects assigned.
Spending should be cut drastically across the board on everything but defense (and even their waste, fraud and abuse needs to be taken seriously). Many programs, departments and spare bureaucrats need to be eliminated right now. Cut several hundred billion dollars and no one would miss what we “lose” in those cuts.
We also need a flat tax and to eliminate corporate tax and taxes on personal investments altogether.
There’s much more that should be done to restore our liberty, but earmarks ARE one part of that and that was the topic of discussion.
This article explores the explosion of earmarks during the Bush Administration and the use of earmarks by the executive branch: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/01/presidential_earmarks.html
Not particularly.
Both branches have strenghts and weaknesses when it comes to allocating funds and congress has the authority attach conditions if it chooses.
At the end of the day, all that matters is the total size of the appropriations. Both branches and both parties have been complicit in the methodical buildup of our fiscal nightmare.
I’m not going to be distracted by minutiae like earmarks while everyone continues to ignore the core problem.
The federal government is fundamentally incapable acting responsibly with the insane amount of power it has acquired in the past 100 years. That’s why most of the power was reserved for the states in the first place.
Jeff–
We’re locking arms here bro. I completely agree. Earmarks are symptom of bigger problems.
The problem is, most people either don’t care enough, don’t know enough, or like that the federal government has accrued this power unto itself.