PMA Earmarks Survive

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Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) said he fears that with all of the rhetoric, Americans might be “reaching the conclusion that earmarks are evil.” He argued that there are important and successful government programs that have been funded through earmarks. “Breast cancer research is in the Defense bill — it’s an earmark,” Inouye said, as are major weapons systems like the C-17 cargo plane. “Earmarks are not evil,” he said.

But some Democrats are joining Republicans in opposing them.

Two of President Barack Obama’s closest allies in the Senate, Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and McCaskill, have both been active on the issue.

On Wednesday, Feingold joined McCain and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in reintroducing a line-item veto bill aimed at combating earmarks.

The legislation would give Obama the ability to target specific spending by allowing the president to require Congress to hold an expedited vote on funding for projects he opposes.

McCain and Feingold, who teamed up in a successful push to reform the nation’s campaign finance laws, have made earmark reform the top priority for their renewed partnership this year. And while their reform bill faces a major uphill battle, both McCain and Feingold on Wednesday argued the number of earmarks loaded into the omnibus makes the case for why reform is needed.

“In order to meet the great economic challenges we are facing, we’ll need to tighten our belts and work across party lines. ... Congress should set an example by passing this legislation which takes a serious step toward curbing wasteful spending,” Feingold said.

McCaskill, meanwhile, in a floor speech Wednesday harshly criticized the earmarks in the bill but also accused Republicans of hypocrisy on the issue.

McCaskill noted that despite the GOP’s attacks on earmarks, Republican lawmakers are responsible for some 40 percent of the projects included in the bill.

Republicans “went on and on and on during the stimulus bill about earmarking. No fewer than 17 different Republican Senators stood up and absolutely, with righteous indignation, talked about the pet projects in the stimulus bill. And guess what? Every single one of them has earmarks in this bill,” McCaskill noted.

Conservatives warned that the defeat on the Senate floor will not temper their passion for attacking earmarks.

Ryan Ellis, tax policy director for Americans for Tax Reform, said earmarks matter in part because they make it easier for Congress to pass larger bills that expand the reach of government. Earmarks for their districts are the enticements to get conservatives to vote for a bill they would otherwise oppose in principle. “You never win those until you take care of the earmarks,” Ellis said. “You take away the earmarks, you take away their excuse to vote for it.”

“If you take all the earmarks out of an otherwise big authorization bill, [a Republican member] will say, ‘There is nothing in this for my district, it is just a generalized expansion of government,” which is easier to vote against.

Dennis Whitfield, executive vice president of the American Conservative Union, said: “Earmarks do matter. They do count if for no other reason than a statement of principle. ... Nothing good ever comes from these earmarks, and the taxpayers don’t know what they are paying for.”

Whitfield said he is unconcerned that the anti-earmark crowd keeps losing floor votes. “There is efficacy of losing,” Whitfield said. “Newt Gingrich lost twice before he won. [Obama] lost a Democratic primary for Congress. ... It’s OK to lose once in a while.”