This tale of two small tech companies in Alexandria perfectly illustrates how damaging the practice of earmarking — anonymously adding spending to appropriations bills without public hearings, open debate or peer review — has become. And not only for taxpayers who foot the bill.
Vibration and Sound Solutions Ltd. received millions for its “Project M” magnetic levitation program, thanks to earmarks submitted by Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., and Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. The tax dollars kept coming even though the Navy decided five years ago it wasn’t interested in VSSL’s magnetic levitation program.
When federal funds finally dried up earlier this year, Moran campaign contributor and company President Robert Conkling shuttered his Royal Street facility. At that point, according to Department of Defense officials, VSSL had received at least $30 million from the firm’s lone “customer” even though that customer insisted for years it wasn’t interested in the magnetic levitation program.
Moran and Hunter were far from alone in using defense spending for questionable purposes. There were 2,847 earmarks totaling $9.4 billion submitted by members of Congress in the fiscal ’06 defense budget. Not a dime of that $9.4 billion was requested by President Bush or Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.
Meanwhile, the Center for Defense Information reports, many active and reserve Army units still lack basic equipment neededfor combat training, and are rated at the lowest possible readiness levels.
By contrast, another Alexandria tech firm, H2Gen Innovations, couldn’t get federal funding for its innovative method of producing purified hydrogen for fuel-cell vehicles. Forbes.com reports that congressional earmarks sucked up most of the money potentially available for even a peer-reviewed project like H2Gen’s that might well lessen the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels and make driving more affordable for millions of Americans.
“Earmarks are all about political power. It has noting to do with scientific merit,” University of Virginia political scientist James Savage told The Christian Science Monitor.
If Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has his way, what he calls “the gateway drug to overspending” will be outlawed. Then billions of dollars in “pulled pork” — now spent on such questionable projects such as developing plant nursery robots, making catfish taste better, offering French “re-acquisition” classes and subsidizing a teapot museum — will be available for more urgent priorities such as homeland security.
So, next time Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., wants $100,000 to develop “a handicap-accessible playground” in Fairfax County, or Rep. Chris van Hollen, D-Md., thinks taxpayers should pony up $150,000 for “health information technology” for Bethesda’s Suburban Hospital Health Care System, they should introduce a bill to be debated out in the open, not an anonymous earmark crafted in a back-room deal behind closed congressional doors.
By the way, this editorial’s title comes from a recent statement by Moran describing his plans if he heads a congressional panel next year.
