Congressional Earmarks

I made clear to you what I am and am not arguing against, and that's what this debate is about. Earmarks and pork-barrel spending are used interchangeably, and pork barrel spending is an expenditure that yields jobs or other benefits to a specific locale and patronage opportunities to its political representative. Congress's own definition of earmarks "funds that individual senators or representatives specify be directed to projects and activities that will benefit particular people, institutions or locations in their home constituencies." These ethics reform bills you are talking about mean practically nothing. You think we can trust Congress to police itself? No matter what the new rules are, the lobbyists and the congressmen will always find a way to get around them -- especially when they are the ones left to do the policing! Earmarks are not always vetted, not even now. The stimulus spending did not go through the authorization process. It couldn't have. The bill was made up as it went along. The local argument is absolutely relevant to this, given the definition of earmarks I gave above. It is the use of federal dollars for local purposes. Congress is supposed to, by the Constitution, be spending for federal purposes. If they are not even doing that then the problem is only worse than I am claiming it is. Individual members can propose spending in their districts, they can argue on behalf of their constituencies for why it suits the national interest to fund it, but Congress as a whole is supposed to spend money for the national interest. Earmarking does bypass the authorization process and goes straight to the appropriations. 4.1 Put another way, if I said that companies that publish books no one likes go out of business due to lack of sales, that logic of going out of business due to lack of sales would also apply to companies that publish books people would like but never hear about. I make an argument for the first situation, and my logic also happens to be right in the second situation, no error in my logic is proven. I argued that earmarks are not effective expenditures (you interpreted what I was saying to mean bad at creating jobs) and should be eliminated for that. You said that executive branch boondoggles also are not effective expenditures, and I wouldn't dispute that. I'm not defending the turtle tunnel. 4.2 I would never imply otherwise. Every federal expenditure is going to be in some area, the question is whether the expenditure has a federal purpose. Military bases are one example of yes, the bridge to nowhere is an example of no. Protecting nuclear power plants from terrorism is an example of yes, even though the ones who primarily benefit are the ones who are closest to it. But such expenditures should be determined based on risk, not on whether the representative of the area sits on the right committee, is of the majority party, or has a tough reelection fight coming up. Earmarks are weighted in favor of all those final 3 things, and that's no coincidence, and certainly no way to spend public money Simply not true that earmarks are more likely to get vetted than authorized expenditures. Quite the contrary, authorization is far more likely. Just look at what goes on right now