Republicans who want to ban the use of budget earmarks next year claim it will usher in a new era in Congress, one free of pork-barrel spending projects like Alaska’s notorious $250 million “Bridge to Nowhere” or the $200,000 tattoo removal program in Los Angeles.
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But the move, agreed to last week by GOP leaders in the House and Senate, left many lawmakers in both parties wondering how they’d steer federal money to projects in their states without earmarks, provisions lawmakers can slip into massive spending bills without public attention. Earmark opponents, meanwhile, question whether it is even possible to eliminate wasteful spending entirely.
And just about everyone on Capitol Hill is wondering if the elimination of earmarks will really make a dent in the soaring federal budget deficit.
The GOP’s embrace of earmark reform came after angry voters swept more than 60 Democrats out of the House and six out of the Senate in the Nov. 2 elections largely over fears of runaway government spending. House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, who will become House speaker in January, said the earmark ban “shows the American people we are listening and we are dead serious about ending business as usual in Washington.”
But many GOP lawmakers went along reluctantly, with some pointing out that because earmarks account for less than 1 percent of the federal budget, their elimination will do little to cut the nation’s $1.3 trillion deficit. And Republicans acknowledge that the practice of sending federal money back to lawmakers’ home states likely won’t end even if earmarks are eliminated. It’s more likely that lawmakers will find other ways to distribute those funds, they said.
Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, R-Mo., sponsored 38 earmarks last year totaling more than $30 million for projects back home, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. She now worries that there won’t be enough money to repair crumbling roads and bridges in her state. Without earmarks, decisions about how to spend those federal dollars will be left to the executive branch.
“The earmarks that I previously have done are not because of lobbyists, but because the Missouri Department of Transportation comes with a list of all the highway projects or the water and sewer district asks for funding,” Emerson said. “Unless you consider a mayor in a community a lobbyist and I don’t.”
Emerson is not alone. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., walked out of a meeting of Senate Republicans on earmarks, voicing opposition to the ban and telling reporters he would continue to designate money for projects in his state.
A Republican ban on earmarks would make it especially difficult for House Democrats to funnel money home once the GOP takes control of the House in January.
“It will be harder, there’s no doubt about it,” said Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., who will be the top Democrat on the House Transportation Committee, where millions of dollars in highway earmarks are generated.
“I am a defender of the earmark process and I don’t understand those on the majority side who want to ban them,” Rahall said. “What’s the role of a member of Congress then? Should we just go home after we cast the vote for speaker?”
