Alluring aroma of pork: Republicans poised to restart earmark factory in Congress

[corbe]

Alluring aroma of pork: Republicans poised to restart earmark factory in Congress

 By Stephen Dinan - The Washington Times - Sunday, January 8, 2017


Former Sen. Tom Coburn can still tick off a rogue’s gallery of the dumbest earmarks he saw.

Of course there’s the Bridge to Nowhere, the nearly half-billion-dollar link to an Alaskan island with a population of 50. But there’s also the Seattle sculpture garden or, one of his favorites, the goose poop earmark of one senator who asked federal taxpayers to pick up the tab for controlling the troublesome birds so they no longer soiled his home city’s parks in New York.

This makes it all the more stunning to Mr. Coburn that six years after Congress finally shut off the earmark factory, many members are clamoring to bring them back.

Senate Republicans are poised to restore earmarks unless opponents muster the votes to stop them in a secret ballot Tuesday. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan, Wisconsin Republican, is under severe pressure from his members and has agreed to study the issue.

“Very tone-deaf,” Mr. Coburn told The Washington Times. “I’d love to know who the smart guys are in the Republican conference who want to do this.”

Earmarks are the spending items that lawmakers tuck into bills and reports that direct money for roads, parking garages, city parks, dams and military projects in their home districts.

Critics call it pork, but fans say earmarking is the way the country’s founders intended it: Congress has the power of the purse and is charged with directing federal money.

Lawmakers say earmarks are more in tune with the needs of their constituents than bureaucrats at federal agencies, so it makes sense that they would have a say in what projects should be prioritized.

“Why should we as members of Congress give authority to the White House? That is what has happened, and it brought Congress to a standstill. Bring back earmarks,” former Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democrats’ longtime floor leader, pleaded with colleagues in his farewell address last month.

At their height, earmarks amounted to about 1 percent of total government spending, but they accounted for a lot of the grief that lawmakers faced over spending decisions.

Turning point

Perhaps no piece of legislation was more poisonous for earmarks than the massive 2005 highway bill, coming in at nearly $300 billion, and piled full of pork.

<..snip..>

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/8/tom-coburn-says-restoring-earmarks-will-backfire-o/

[Maj. Bill Martin]

Well, damn if Harry doesn't have something approaching a point.

Why is it better to have the President -- through his administrative agencies/departments -- allocate that money, as opposed to Congress?  So that he and the bureaucrats can reward their friends?

I'd rather it not get spent at all, but if it is going to be spent, I get why Congress wants to be involved.

[Sanguine]

For later.

[endicom]

Perhaps no piece of legislation was more poisonous for earmarks than the massive 2005 highway bill, coming in at nearly $300 billion, and piled full of pork.

I said here the other day that Trump's trillion dollars infrastructure spending would probably be done in any case but piecemeal and with the usual graft. This is what I meant.