Next Time I Really Mean It!
March 11, 2009 3 Comments
From the NY Times:
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President Obama said that he will sign an “imperfect” spending bill packed with special projects in order to keep government running, but he vowed that it will be the last one and proposed ways to curb lawmakers from abusing the process in the future.
President Obama said any future earmarks should have a “legitimate and worthy public purpose” and be transparently available to public scrutiny.
The president’s remarks coincided with new policies announced by House Democrats intended to further restrict earmarks.
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Can anyone tell me the difference between funds from the stimulus package that goes to public works projects and earmarks that go to states for public works projects? Stimulating the economy or bringing home the bacon?
-pf
PF: There’s no real difference, excpet that earmarks have a way of worming into federal budgets as permanent increases, and don’t usually contain sunset provisions. They are technically “one year money”, which menas that the federal government is supposed to spend/obligate all 8,100 or so of them before 30 September 2009. In reality, there are agencies of the federal government who establish new programs based on sizable Congressional earmakrs, and after getting the earmerk for 4 or 5 years, OMB tells the agency to make it a part of the President’s Budget request.
This happens under both Democrats and Republicans – please keep that in mind when talking about “big government spending” politicians.
Oh I fully understand, I just think it’s ironic.
I also understand that this kind of thing is not new to this administration, nor is it a partisan issue. Big government is born out of the desire of politicians to spend other people’s money on other people. They do this because that is what the voters want. I believe that it will take a major shift in culture among the majority of voters before any of this spending will stop. The current fix is for the government to encourage people to spend money they don’t have, to stimulate the economy by spending money that the government doesn’t have. What is needed is a reality check. I think this would happen if the government stopped spending borrowed money to fix bad investments (painful now). I also think that it will happen eventually with the governments help (painful later). Living in debt eventually catches up to everyone. The only variable is how much it will cost in the long run.
-pf