The great earmark debate

OK, when you hear the word "earmark" are you really thinking "pork"? Because they are two slightly different things. Heard the debate about this on Fox this morning and also looked it up to make sure I'm not just making a fool of myself discussing it. So here's what I found.

Not all pork is earmarked, but all earmarks are pork, otherwise they'd be "special bills," which apply to only certain individuals or states rather than to the population as a whole.

That is to say, congress can pass a law that says, "$250 billion will be allocated for interstate highways," and this might be interpreted as pork. But with an earmark, the bill would read, "$250 billion will be allocated for interstate highways, with $100 billion going to fund projects on I-75 between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia." In addition, earmarks aren't limited to money allocations, but can also take the form of "special favors" for one or another interest group.

See the difference?

Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader, argues in favor of earmarks, saying, "The money will be spent anyway. The argument is over who controls where it's spent."

That's kinda true. If that $100 billion of the total $250 billion for highways is NOT earmarked by congress to be spent in Pennsylvania, then the Executive branch will decide where it goes -- maybe Pennsylvania, maybe somewhere else, probably depending on who kisses the Comrade's butt.

On the other hand, Senator Jim DeMint and others in the Tea Party who want to eliminate earmarking all together claim that if the dollars can't be earmarked, they probably won't be allocated at all. I mean, who wants to give the Executive branch any more money to play with and spend at its own discretion?

I tend to agree with the Tea Party argument. If congressmen do look at legislation and ask, "So, what's n it for me and my state?" and they see there ain't nothin' in it for them, they probably won't vote for it without some other, more compelling reason -- like genuine need, or because it's right, or would help the nation as a whole.

It's a disgrace and a shame on the nation that it's become almost business-as-usual in congress to "buy" support for legislation by promising earmarks to legislators.  For example, let's look at the socialized medicine bill. Any earmarks there? How about exempting Florida from the bill's ban on Medicare Advantage programs? The Corn Husker Kick-back that gave Nebraska special favors to buy Nelson's vote? Or the $200 billion pay-off to Mary Landrieu of Louisiana to secure her vote?

Would the socialized medicine bill have passed without these earmarks? I don't think so. Socialized medicine didn't then and doesn't now enjoy much public support. The only way to pass that piece of crap was to bribe the senate. That it worked highlights a very, very sad state of affairs in American government. And I don't care if "they do it all the time." If congress does operate that way all the time, then we should vote all the bums out and start over with a clean slate and nothing but the Constitution. And judging by the last election, I'm not alone in holding that attitude.

"They do it all the time" assumes that legislators don't vote on issues or policy anymore, but on how many goodies they can accumulate. That's not the way America is supposed to work. Changing it -- taking it back to Constitutional intentions -- is not blind idealism, either, but more like restoring the nation to its stated principles and securing the blessings of liberty. That is, after all, the only purpose for the US government.

Some interesting fall-out from all the earmarks in the socialized medicine bill, too. Because of all the personal promises and earmarks in that bill, legislators did not include what's called a "severability clause." "Severability" means that if one section or clause in the bill is ruled unconstitutional, then that clause alone can be omitted, or severed, but the rest of the bill would stand.

However, in order to protect the earmarks -- to make sure that they couldn't be cut out of the bill -- the socialized medicine bill doesn't include a severability clause. So if one clause or one section of that bill is ruled unconstitutional, the whole thing goes out the window.

Woohoo! Otherwise known (to lit majors, anyway) as "hoisted on their own petard."

We can only hope.

Save the Republic. And eliminate earmarking.