We need to change the term "earmarks." The practice has come to be a bad word in the minds of the general public. To the public, the term "earmarks" has come to mean pork, waste and corruption.
It's not the practice that many have a problem with. Certainly, the fiscal appropriation needs of a community are best understood by the local citizens and their representatives in the Congress.
It's the appropriation process that gives people heartburn.
Inserting funding into unrelated appropriation bills, many in the middle of the night, is not a respectful way to legislate the nation's business. Earmarks and campaign contributions are part and parcel of the pay-to-play system that permeates Washington. The system is abused by partisan polities; "pork barrels" that essentially cause politicians to bribe, or blackmail each other to agree to any spending legislation. The practice is a form of "quid pro quo" where one legislator obtains an extra helping of pork with the expectation of a return favor. Companies making thousands of dollars in campaign contributions get millions of dollars of earmarked taxpayer dollars from lawmakers in return.
There are too many instances of undeserving projects which are nothing more than legislative appropriations designed to ingratiate legislators with their constituents. Of course -- Alaskans like pork barrel spending when it is for Alaska. Who doesn't like Santa Claus? But, how many of us support the earmark of $2.6 billion for the New Orleans Voyager Expanded Learning Program that was placed in our National Defense Budget by Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu? Maybe some folks outside Louisiana thought it was OK, but did they still feel that way after they learned the executive committee of the organization contributed $30,000 to her re-election campaign? How many Alaskans want their tax dollars spent to study the sex life of the Japanese quail? Those are just a couple of the innumerable examples of absurd appropriations.
How many remember that in November 2005, Rep. Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Calif., resigned from Congress and pled guilty to conspiring to take $2.4 million in bribes from two defense contractors who received earmarks through his legislative efforts? How many remember Jack Abramoff, who referred to the House Appropriations Committee as "the favor factory?"
Our country is racing toward bankruptcy with a national debt near $14 trillion. The midterm elections indicate voters are fed up with fiscal irresponsibility. They have concluded that national liquidity trumps pork barrel spending. They are desperate to vote for anyone who promises to bring fiscal sanity. In recent days, House Republicans seem ready to declare at least an earmark moratorium. After early resistance, most senior Senate Republicans accepted the people's Nov. 2 verdict on earmarks, but the body, with eight foolish Republicans (which included our own senior senator) defending them, resolved to retain earmarks.
It is true that earmarks are only a small percentage of federal spending. But earmarks are symbolic of much that has contributed to our nation's ills.
Earmarks -- unregulated, unreviewed spending projects inserted into appropriations bills -- do cost American taxpayers billions of dollars annually. Earmarks exacerbate vote swapping. Incumbents are bankrolled by elite interests outside the states they represent. Earmarks represent the worst of Washington's corruption and fiscal promiscuity. They are systematic to the overall crisis of runaway federal spending.
Should we applaud our two senators for their "no" vote to end the current pork barrel "earmark process"? I will applaud and respect those in Congress who sponsor and vigorously work to bring much needed reform to the legislative appropriations process.
That process must be transparent, merit-based, open to public scrutiny and void of out-of-state campaign contribution influence.
Wiley Brooks is a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, retired real estate broker and volunteer Alaska director for Americans for Fair Taxation.
By WILEY BROOKS