I Love Earmarks! I wish we had 149 billion in earmarks included in the spending bill!

[Better Believe It]

Senator McCain says he's against the "earmarks" because we have millions of people out of work.

Really?

Well, those earmarks will provide useful jobs for thousands of currently unemployed people!

Nothing wrong with that!

I'd like to see every member of Congress add the National Conference of Mayors proposed infrastructure projects as "earmarks" to the next spending bill. That's 149 billion in "earmarks" that would create 18,000 local public works projects employing one and a half million people within the next two years!

Let's mark more ears!!!

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In Defense of Earmarks
by Melissa Harris-Lacewell
03/10/2009
The Nation

The US Senate spent yesterday freaking out on Capitol Hill about the spending bill. Senators are wrangling about its passage because so many of the proposed spending items fall under the broad category "earmarks." Can we pause for just a minute? I need to point out that earmarks are not necessarily evil. An earmark is just a way of describing a government funded project where the spending is designated for a particular group or location.

In other words, all taxpayers pay into one big federal taxation pot. Then the funds from that pot have to be divided up and spent. Some of the money is spent on things that impact all citizens equally (national defense) and some of the money is spent on things that benefit only a small group of people. For example, if federal tax dollars repair a road between South Carolina and Georgia, then the people who regularly travel along that road will get more benefit than commuters in Wisconsin. Or if federal tax dollars support a middle school on a Navajo reservation then the students who attend that school will get the benefit while their public school peers in center city Boston don't. Get it?

But there is nothing inherently evil or bad about such a system. In fact, it is nearly impossible to imagine any other way of crafting a federal budget. Of course we all pay into the pot. Of course some projects benefit some localities and other projects benefit other localities. This is part of the genius of our Founding Fathers. They created a system with multiple layers of accountability. Members of the House of Representatives are elected from local districts and they are supposed to worry about being responsive to local interests. They are reelected every 2 years to ensure maximum accountability to these local interests. It is their job to make sure that many of the local spending projects end up in their district. If your representative is not doing this then you should fire her! Seriously. Please make sure that federal government money is allocated to your community and if it isn't please run against your member of Congress in 2010.

Now Senators are elected from states and are supposed have somewhat broader interests. They have a longer electoral clock (6 years) so that they can think more long term and because they are accountable to an entire state they are supposed to take a broader view. Good. Senators are not as accountable to localized interests. Each of us is BOTH a citizen of a congressional district and of a state. It is right and proper to have both our local interests and state interests represented in political bargaining. Part of the reason every state has 2 senators is so we can have overlapping understandings of what it means to represent a state.

Please read the entire article at:

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/416062?rel=hp_picks

[spinbaby]

1. Gives 'em something to whine about

Never mind the trillions down the rabbit hole in Iraq, the economy is in trouble because Byrd funded a fancy rest area in West Virginia.