How much does the DUniverse care about earmarks?

[Cant trust em]

Are they helpful? Are they wasteful? Should we keep them as is, or look for ways to streamline them and make them more transparent?

[Common Sense Party]

1. They're useful when they come to MY area. They're shameful,

wasteful pork when they go to YOUR area.

Therefore, there should ONLY be earmarks for MY area.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

2. I don't care at all. It's a largely fake issue.

Earmarks thwart centralized planning -- regions compete for funds whether the region is the right place for the funds or not.

But for good or ill our system was designed to defend regional interests and thwart centralized planning.

Earmarks are inefficient but they add nothing to the deficit -- the deficit doesn't care whether a borrowed dollar goes to Arizona or Minnesota.

[Warpy]

3. Many of them are useful, such as grants to school districts

to repair roofs and heating plants, for instance. Only a few are utterly ridiculous, like Stevens's "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska, to a moderately used airport that was well serviced by ferry.

Unfortunately, most are slipped into totally unrelated legislation as riders, so they escape much scrutiny. That's really the problem, not the earmarks themselves.

[adamuu]

4. they undermine the authority granted to our various agencies

and make their appointed duties that much more difficult and, naturally, more costly. They indirectly contribute to wasteful spending.

[davidinalameda]

5. none

[frazzled]

6. Just make them transparent

A good senator will make good earmarks: to hospitals, universities, research facilities and projects that would otherwise have difficulty getting funded. Bad senators will be impeded from making egregiously bad earmarks by a transparency process.

Banning them won't make a dent in the budget. Let the sun shine in and then, chill.

[Uben]

7. Eliminate them being added to obscure bills.

If congressmen want money for a project, let them write up a bill and have it voted on on it's own merits. Complete with full transparency and ownership. Hiding shit deep inside huge bills is dishonest.

[wellstone dem]

8. Earmarks fund an amazing domestic abuse project in my community

Thanks to Amy Klobuchar. On the other hand, we got our bridge built without help, because Bachmann wouldn't earmark it, but she did show up for the ribbon cutting.

[Ozymanithrax]

9. If you care about the deficit, earmarks are not enough to make a difference.

The only way to tackle the deficit is to tackle the part of the budget that takes up more than half of what we spend as a nation, defense, which includes the current wars.

Defense is the real third rail of politics. Oh, a few of our touchy feely lefty liberals or libertarians (The Kucinich/Paul intersection) talk about cutting defense, but for anyone else, Defense is untouchable.

There are a few bridges to nowhere, but a majority of those earmarks go to make communities better, bring jobs into communities, build bridges to somewhere important.

In 2008, the most liberal definition of earmarks only found 67 billion. And Factcheck.org noted that most of those, if they were not earmarked, would be funded in the normal budget as regular government expenses. So Earmarks/Pork Barrel Spending is just smoke and mirrors that, along with Social Security/Medicare are used to keep anyone from saying, "we need to cut defense."

[OHdem10]

10. It is how they are used. One Party uses them to buy the other

Parties votes.

Here is an easy to describe example:

When GWB was trying to pass the Medicare Drug Plan
he needed some Democratic Senators Votes.

Since she is no longer going to here let us
take Blanche Lincoln.

She is a DLC Senator which tells him she is pro-business
and a likely candidate to get to come his way.

Therefore, what can I give her that will bring her along.
Since Lincoln will vote business interests over consituents
interest in any legislation, she needs some perks for her
constituents. You know things that will make nice photos
in her local papers and TV News. He or the Senate Republicans
came up with a package of very nice goodies including a couple
of small storefront Health Centers for the Poor.
Lincoln helped GW by voting with the Republicans and back
home she had the pictures to show how she looks out for
her poor constituents. She looks like a real Democrat.
Reality she voted with the Republicans over 75% of the time.
Not good for the average joes in Arkansas. These health centers
only helped a small number of people. Resentments build
--why do only a few get something???

Both parties do this.

[jwirr]

11. My problems with earmarks is that candidates use them to buy elections. nt

[On the Road]

12. It is One Thing to Pass Pork-Barrel Spending for Wasteful Products

but as I understand it, a lot of earmarks simply redirect money that's already allocated to the states. It's simply a question of which project the funds are assigned to.

By earmarking, a Congressman preempts state government. However, the influence that leads to earmarks in Congress are often just as powerful on the state level. So in practice I would guess it's often a wash, and would often turn out the same way.

This opinion is based on a simplistic understanding of the process, so someone please correct me if I'm off base.

[jpgray]

13. Earmarks are not too significant in terms of budget, but they are harmful in another way

Let's say I get my legislator to insert one for a nutritional center at my university, providing me with federal funds to build it. Hey, it's not -bad- to invest in something like that, and it isn't a -waste- of federal money!

That's true, but the point is that my university isn't receiving the funds because it can best use them, or because my university most needs the money, but because I have connections with a congressperson. I pay a lobbyist to convince the legislator, and that convincing should be easy and not even necessarily corrupt, because what's so evil about funding a university? But at the same time, I would be encouraging an environment of access peddling over merit-based evaluation in the use of federal money.

That is toxic on its own, and it is infinitely more toxic when campaigns are as expensive as they are today--earmarks can become a tool for fundraising.

[gratuitous]

14. Since they make up about 1% of all spending, not much

I suppose if earmarks were designated as designated spending or something slightly more palatable, folks wouldn't mind them so much. An earmark is money designated for a particular purpose, that can't be use for something else. Money earmarked for a bridge has to be spent on that bridge, and can't be redirected when the locality suddenly decides that the bridge they lobbied so hard to build is no longer needed, but that new golf course is.