A sharp reduction in federal dollars available next year for congressional earmarks means dozens of D.C. nonprofits accustomed to picking up subsidies through the budget process could get nothing.
District Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D, has only $231,000 to work with for fiscal 2008, she said last week, a fraction of the $20 million she said was available for earmarks in 2007. Of her allotment, $131,000 will go to rebuild the fire-ravaged Eastern Market, $40,000 to Howard University’s College of Dentistry, $40,000 to the Center for Inspired Teaching, $10,000 to MenzFit and $10,000 to the Patricia M. Sitar Center for the Arts.
Democrats took over Congress after the November elections in part by committing to pay-as-you-go financing, the party’s promise to spend only what is available, Norton said Monday. PAYGO can’t be achieved, she said, “by giving out the bountiest earmarks as we did before.”
“Hey, they cut me. … But you do not see me complaining, because you can’t say that these nonprofits deserve or need the money more than increasing Medicaid, for example,” Norton said. “Those are the hard choices here.”
Slashing taxpayer-funded “pork” is a thorny issue for Congress, even as poll after poll shows the handouts are politically unpopular. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., this year halved the available money for earmarks, spurring the reduction.
D.C. groups that received earmarks in years past but could get nothing this year unless something changes include Children’s National Medical Center, Whitman-Walker Clinic, D.C. Poison Control Center, Boys and Girls Clubs of D.C. and the Gospel Rescue Mission. Earmarks allow nonprofits to serve more people, expand their facilities and ramp up training, said Chuck Bean, executive director of The Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington. The groups most likely to be impacted by the curtailment are those that serve the neediest populations, and they are worried, he said.
“It’s pretty clear where the nation’s priorities are in terms of spending, and I’m not sure that it’s on the needs of the most vulnerable,” Bean said.
