Barreling with the Porkers

“It’s the economy, stupid!” “All politics is local.” Aphorisms that ring in the hollow minds of elected officials… at every level. Congressmen and women who deliver (remember the Alaskan “bridge to nowhere”?) for their districts have a better shot at reelection, and generating the campaign dollars from those who directly benefit from such delivery, so the rhetoric of fiscal discipline is often redefined to mean: the targeting local federal spends in other Congressional districts is pork (pork = waste), but the elements statutorily specified for improvements (“earmarks”) in a home district are just smart politics. “In March 2010, the House Appropriations Committee implemented rules to ban earmarks to for-profit corporations. According to the New York Times, approximately 1,000 such earmarks were authorized in the previous year, worth $1.7 billion.” Wikipedia. But not all the expenditures are to for-profit corporations, are they?

Try closing a military base in a powerful Congressional district, and watch the sparks fly. People don’t feel national economic pain; they experience hardship at the local level. How would you ever vote against a Congressional representative who has delivered prosperity in your district while the rest of the nation suffers? There is a lot at stake, so the representatives who know how to bend the rules and find the loopholes are often those who get the votes. So how has the Congressional moratorium on earmarks fared? How are we doing in containing the local delivery virus that aggregates to a serious budgetary menace if the contagion continues to aggregate by infecting most of the districts? And are they benefiting constituents… or themselves… or both?

The Washington Post investigated public records tracking Congressional earmarks since 2008, focusing particularly on projects located near the elected representatives’ own holdings: “A U.S. senator from Alabama directed more than $100 million in federal earmarks to renovate downtown Tuscaloosa near his own commercial office building. A congressman from Georgia secured $6.3 million in taxpayer funds to replenish the beach about 900 feet from his island vacation cottage. A representative from Michigan earmarked $486,000 to add a bike lane to a bridge within walking distance of her home…. Thirty-three members of Congress have directed more than $300 million in earmarks and other spending provisions to dozens of public projects that are next to or within about two miles of the lawmakers’ own property, according to a Washington Post investigation… Under the ethics rules Congress has written for itself, this is both legal and undisclosed.” Washington Post, February 6^th [emphasis added].

Want a little more? “Some members of Congress send tax dollars to companies, colleges and community groups where their spouses, children and parents work as salaried employees, lobbyists or board members, according to an examination of federal disclosure forms and local public records by The Washington Post… [The Post found]16 [Congressmen and women] who have taken actions that aided entities connected to their immediate family… The examination uncovered a broad range of connections between the public and private lives of the nation’s lawmakers…. Lawmakers said in interviews the actions they took were not intended to directly benefit their relatives or themselves. Instead, they say, the largesse was meant to assist corporations, educational programs and community organizations that employ, educate and help residents in their congressional districts.” Washington Post, February 7^th. But Congress has mandated a 2010 moratorium on many such allocations and/or earmarks? Is this still really happening?

“A coalition of budget watchdog groups says that in the absence of the age-old practice of Congressional earmarks, the legislative tools that let members attach pet projects to bills, lawmakers appear to have found a backdoor method: special funds in spending and authorization bills that allow them to direct money to projects in their states… The latest example, the groups say, is the recently passed budget for the Army Corps of Engineers. Budget documents show that Congress included 26 different funds — totaling $507 million — for the corps to spend on various construction, maintenance and other projects that were not included in President Obama’s budget or the final spending bill.

“The funds were financed by reducing money for projects included in the president’s budget request and adding $375 million to the corps budget, documents show… Congress also gave the corps criteria to use in selecting projects and instructed it to report within 45 days about how it intends to spend the money from the funds, according to the budget documents…Critics say the special funds in the corps budget are the latest example of members of Congress trying to circumvent the earmark ban to funnel money to their districts, in the form of corps engineering projects. In the absence of earmarks, lawmakers have tried pressing agencies for money or in some cases threatened to tie up Congress if projects are not financed… For example, in 2010, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, threatened to block Obama administration appointments unless money was provided for a harbor dredging project in his home state.” New York Times, February 6^th.

The more powerful the Congressional representative – and that means have the seniority to be members of and even preside over key committees and subcommittees through which most legislation must pass – the greater that representative’s ability to deliver. Graham sits on the Senate’s Appropriations, Armed Services, Judiciary and Budget Committees, for example. And what constituency wants weak representatives, so even in times of strong “do-nothing” incumbents showing very disappointing poll numbers, these powerful incumbents have the edge over their opponents for this very reason. Some suggest strict term limits, but for House members, whose term is a mere two years, is the measure total time in office (10 year limits would still push through 5 elections!)? And isn’t horse-trading just part of the political process, the reason folks get elected anyway?

National priorities, even with so many of us on the ropes, struggling to restore economic order, consumer confidence and even growth take a back seat to local politics. Notwithstanding that appropriations bills must originate with the House, with two senators from each state regardless of population, small states tend to receive more in federal expenditures per capita than the tax dollars they contribute… and South Carolina is most certainly in that category (8^th on the list of states with the worst ratio of dollars contributed to dollars received according the April 4, 2011 Daily Beast). Mr. Graham’s seat is probably pretty safe.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it is truly sad that the priorities that need to be addressed in our efforts to restore our economy must take a back seat to local politics.