Epic Fail: The Earmark Moratorium Solved Nothing

During the 2010 election season criticism of earmarks reached a fever pitch. Candidates running on the political right declared that earmarks were the source of most of our evils.

Arch earmark opponent Senator Tom Coburn cast earmarks as a "gateway" to big spending. Following the 2010 elections Senator John McCain, a long time foe of earmarks, said that “The time has come for Congress to put a stop to the corrupt practice of earmarking once and for all.”

Critics of earmarks argued that eliminating earmarks would be a step toward balancing the budget and restoring confidence in American political institutions. As it turns out eliminating earmarks has achieved neither objective.

According to a new Gallup poll  “Americans now estimate that the federal government wastes 51 cents on the dollar, a new high since Gallup first began asking the question in 1979.” This is the first time since Gallup began asking this question back in the late-1970s that the estimated percentage of waste exceeded 50%.

So the budget deficit remains despite the moratorium on earmarks. And people are now convinced that government wastes more money than they thought when earmarks were included in appropriations bills. Nice work.

We have long argued that the earmark hysteria was concocted to promote the political fortunes of certain politicians, and increase contributions to "watchdog groups." On numerous occasions we have argued that the brouhaha surrounding earmarks was mostly about generating soundbites. This blog and our book Cheese Factories on the Moon are aimed at promoting a full understanding of earmarks.

Now comes a news release from watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense in which they finally admit that the bluster about earmarks was more about generating public ire than promoting serious budget savings. In a recent release the organization says, “... congressional earmarks were $15.9 billion in fiscal year 2010 -- less than half of 1 percent of the budget. Good sound bites don't always equal big savings.”

This political donnybrook over earmarks would be unremarkable but for one fact: The elimination of earmarks is bad for American democracy.

• In the absence of earmarks the Congress cedes considerable power over spending to the executive branch. This is contrary to American constitutional design and strengthens the hand of congressional Republicans' arch foe Barack Obama. 

• The moratorium robs the ability of members of Congress to adapt national programs to address the unique problems and concerns of their constituents. It is left to the bureaucrats in the executive branch to prioritize spending.

• In the absence of earmarks Congress is unable to substitute its own judgement for that of the executive branch. We have pointed out here how projects like the Predator Drone, the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, and other projects were pushed by Congress before they were adopted as good ideas by the executive branch.

• In the coming months members of Congress will need to make painful decisions about future  government spending. In the past earmarks served as the "spoonful of sugar" that helped soothe these bitter choices. In our system, which relies on compromise, earmarks made compromise easier to swallow. Congressional leaders no longer have this tool at their disposal. The earmark moratorium makes finding common ground much more difficult.

A strong Congress was a critical component of the Founders' institutional design. Granting the Congress the "power of the purse" was a conscious decision meant to bolster the power of Congress and promote the interests of the people through their elected representatives.

The current moratorium has not delivered on its promises and is harmful to the Congress-centered nature of American democracy. As the kids say these days: Epic Fail.

Parochialism is the Point (sort of)

The election is over. Republicans won the House and increased their numbers in the Senate. Now the media are beginning to focus on how the newly-empowered Republicans will govern.  No longer are earmarks a “talking point;” now they are part of the discussion about how the Republicans will run the House, and how the Republicans might influence the generation of earmarks in the Senate.

One prominent criticism leveled at earmarks is that they are “parochial,” that is, that they are meant to benefit the narrow interests of a single congressional district or state.  The implication is that they do so at the expense of the rest of the country.

In the Senate one of the primary opponents of earmarks is Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK).  In the weeks leading up to the election Coburn often sought to cast earmarks as parochial. In an interview with us a few weeks before the election Coburn stuck to this theme: “Earmarks promote parochialism…The oath of a U.S. Senator is to do what is in the best interest of the country as a whole.”[1]  The next day he repeated this same complaint to the White House fiscal commission: “Our problem is we’ve put parochial concerns ahead of the long-term interests of the country.”[2] 

The earmarks-as-parochialism meme long ago captured the media narrative surrounding earmarks.  The common use of the term “pet project” to describe earmarked expenditures communicates that point pretty well.  We expect that politicians will continue capitalizing on this narrative, which captures the attention of reporters.

What is mostly misunderstood—by many people, by many in the media, and by most politicians—is that parochialism is (partially) the point of the design of our political institutions.

In Federalist Paper #58 James Madison speaks in almost poetic terms of the wisdom of investing the “power of the purse,” the power to spend money, in Congress. He says Congress’ power of the purse is “the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people, for obtaining a redress of every grievance, and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.” The founders sought to provide a means by which “the people” could exercise a more direct influence over federal spending.

Parochialism has its benefits. Conservatives in particular--but others too--bemoan the “one size fits all” nature of federal government programs.  Using earmarks members of Congress can capture programmatic funding to adapt federal programs to local needs that might be overlooked by Washington bureaucracies. Earmarks provide an opportunity for members of Congress to offer “redress” to their constituents.

A “pet project” that results from naked self interest and that is anchored in parochialism is not less impressive because of its origins. In the absence of Senator Pete Domenici’s (R-NM) parochialism—his concern for New Mexico based Department of Energy scientists as the Cold War wound down and peace broke out— the Human Genome Project would never have taken off and produced one of the signal achievements of American science. Parochialism has its benefits.

Part of the genius of the institutional design we inherited from the founders was the conscious and creative incorporation of parochialism into our governing system. Earmarks are just one echo of the efforts of the founders to build a political system that was simultaneously responsive to the demands of the people and responsive to the national interest.

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[1]  Senator Tom Coburn. Phone interview with the authors, September 28, 2010.

[2]  Walter Alarkon, “Fiscal panel poised to target earmarks” The Hill 9/29/10; Accessed November 5, 2010. http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/121751-fiscal-panel-poised-to-target-earmarks