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DarkSteven -> Earmarks (3/4/2011 6:54:25 AM)
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I've been thinking about earmarks. The GOP had vowed to ban them, but that vow was stillborn. At the time, some Congresspeople were saying "That's how things are DONE", and there were some statistics showing that the earmarks themselves constitute a small percentage of overall funding. Also, there was concern that earmarks are the way that Congress ensures that the rights of its constituents are met, while the President doesn't care about individual states.
Which makes me all the more sad that an earmark ban didn't hold.
Let me give you an example. Suppose I have a bill that I want to get passed, and I need the votes of Senators Sanity and DomYngBlk. They both hate the bill, and the only way I can get it passed is to sweeten it with a munitions manufacturing facility in Sanity's state and a federally funded recycling facility in DYB's state. The cost of the bill is NOT the two facilities, it's the cost of THE BILL ITSELF. It would never have passed without the sweeteners.
If there were no earmarks, then Congresspeople would be forced to vote for/against bills on their own merits. According to how their constituents felt. That would mean a combination of polling constituents and speaking to them and swaying their opinions. In a word, dialogue. Force them to worry less about Washington and more about home turf. Be representative.
I wish that earmarks HAD been abolished.
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