Comment & Debate
Jonathan Rauch. “Earmarks Are A Model, Not A Menace”. National Journal. March 14, 2009 – Reformers who want to ban earmarking might think again. ‘You’re never going to abolish earmarks,’ Moran says. ‘What you’ll wind up abolishing is the transparency, the accountability.’ If unable to earmark, legislators will inveigle executive agencies behind the scenes, fry bureaucrats at hearings, and expand or rewrite entire programs to serve parochial needs. This, of course, is the way things worked in the bad old days. ‘I think you’ll wind up going back to that system,’ Kolbe cautions.
A better approach is to improve transparency and further routinize the earmarking process, as President Obama proposed on Wednesday when he signed the omnibus spending bill. But here is a reform that would help much more: Declare earmarking an ex-problem and move on. Next time you come across someone who looks at a giant federal spending bill and sees only the 2 percent that happens to be earmarked, tell that person to get over it.