Pork-barrel spending is alive and well in Washington, D.C., despite claims to the contrary. Even worse, the process is less transparent than ever, adding to the frustration and anger that taxpayers feel toward Congress.
Under pressure from outraged taxpayer watchdog groups and in the wake of several earmark-related corruption scandals, a much-ballyhooed congressional earmark moratorium took effect in fiscal 2011. Since then, every appropriations bill has been declared earmark-free by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees and congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle.
However, that claim is false. These “earmark-free” bills still appropriate taxpayers’ money to many of the same projects that were funded in pre-2011 appropriations cycles and were identified as earmarks between fiscal 2008 and 2010.
For example, 91 of the 123 earmarks, or 74 percent, included in Citizens Against Government Waste’s 2016 “Congressional Pig Book” were identified as earmarks in the appropriations bills that were enacted between fiscal 2008 and 2010. Overall, there have been 489 earmarks costing $15.2 billion since the so-called moratorium was adopted.
Untruths, when repeatedly spread on traditional and social media, quickly become embedded in the public psyche, especially when members of Congress seem content to wave a magic rhetorical wand declaring the appropriations bills earmark-free and move on.
Indeed, in this new and unaccountable scheme, appropriators are writing into the appropriations bill similar amounts of money as they did for previous earmarks. However, the names of the members requesting individual projects and their location have completely disappeared from the appropriations bills. And while it has been reported that members have been skirting the earmark moratorium by surreptitiously contacting agencies to push some of the money to their state or district, a process called “phonemarking,” that information has not been made public.
Taxpayers deserve to know who is responsible for the earmark cover-up and who has been asking for them behind closed doors.
For instance, legislators added 15 earmarks costing $549.6 million in fiscal 2016 for the Army Corps of Engineers in the Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. These earmarks correspond to 482 earmarks costing $541.7 million in fiscal 2010.
The average dollar amount for the 15 earmarks in fiscal 2016 was $36.6 million, compared to $1.1 million for the 482 earmarks in fiscal 2010. There are no names or locations attached to the fiscal 2016 earmarks; the Army Corps just receives that big pile of money to be distributed at a later date. There is also no information about which member of Congress may be calling, emailing or otherwise contacting the Corps after the fact to direct exactly where that money should be spent.
The presence of these furtive earmarks in the appropriations bills enacted since the initiation of the moratorium raise other disturbing questions, particularly because representatives and senators from both sides of the aisle continue to clamor for their revival.
One of the most popular fallback positions for pork barrel-loving members of Congress is that horse-trading earmarks helps grease the skids for the passage of spending bills. Given the disreputable instances in which members have peddled their support for larger, more wasteful, spending bills only after securing funding for their pet earmark projects, that argument is hardly a ringing endorsement for the revival of earmarking. An official outright lifting of the earmark moratorium would inevitably increase the risk of corruption and usher in an unwelcome new explosion in federal expenditures, even compared to today’s elevated levels.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., put it succinctly when he said “The problem with all their arguments is: the more powerful you are, the more likely it is you get the earmark in. Therefore, it is a corrupt system.”
Earmarks create a few winners (appropriators, special interests and lobbyists) and a great many losers (taxpayers). They contribute to the deficit directly, by tacking on extra funding, and indirectly, by attracting votes to costly legislation that might not otherwise pass. The current earmark funding mechanism hides important details from taxpayers, pushing even more of the decision-making over funding behind closed doors and underground, and earmarks corrupt democracy by eclipsing more important matters in the minds of legislators and voters.
The exposure of zombie earmarks in the appropriations bills enacted during the moratorium and the utter absence of accountability related to them are stark reminders that a permanent ban on congressional earmarks is long overdue.
Thomas A. Schatz is president of Citizens Against Government Waste. Thinking of submitting an op-ed to the Washington Examiner? Be sure to read our guidelines on submissions.
