In Defense of Earmarks

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.

Let me say it one more time is this totally psychotic political environment: Earmarks are not necessarily bad.

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.

Then there is the president who has a view of the entire nation and so is meant to guard broad national interests alongside the local concerns. At its best it is a great system where the multiple overlapping constituencies allow all of our interests to have some chance of representation.

The system is not made better by denying the reality of local interests just to claim to be doing everything in the national interest. We are a country of states, we are states of cities, we are cities of neighborhoods. Each of us, each of our communities, makes up the big picture.

Local spending projects (earmarks) are just part of that process. The only way to govern without local spending proects is for the federal government to simply give all the money to the states and let the states decide how to spend the cash. Trust me when I tell you that this is not a good idea. If you have any doubt about what happens when states are allowed to set autonomous policy without federal intervention then I suggest you spend some time reading about slavery and the Civil War.

We should not be hoodwinked by partisan alarmists railing about "billions in earmarks bloating the massive spending bill." There certainly are bad and wasteful local spending projects, just as there are good and noble ones. The simple fact that we spend federal tax money in localities does not make these projects bad. We need to think about the value of projects within a larger framework of both responsible fiscal governance at the federal level and responsiveness to constituency needs at a local level.

Balancing responsible and responsive governing is not easy. It requires tough political bargaining, difficult decision making, and sometimes ideologically directed choices. But that is OK, that is part of how a democracy works.

Comments (44)

1. If you actually want to see what you are talking about, try a little research: http://earmarks.omb.gov/ 2009-appropriations-by-spendcom/summary.html

   Here is the actual budget: http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/ fy2010_new_era/ A_New_Era_of_Responsibility2.pdf

   The URLs are too long so paste in sections.

   There total funds allocated to earmarks is $6,897,750,000 in a budget of $3,983,000,000,000. If you are short on math, earmarks make up only 1.73% of the entire budget.

   Earmarks are used by both parties to obtain funding beyond that which state tax revenues can raise for projects and improvements that have federal concerns, like building roads, bridges, agriculture, commerce, tc. They also are directly for militray improvements and programs that are particular to that state, like infrastructure needs for an army fort or marine base. These things are not just pork.

   Don't you thinkit is ironic that congress people will set earmarks in the budget thne criticize the other party for doing the same thing? McCain is very critical of earmarks, but also uses them. Some even go so far as to put in earmarks and then call for Obama to veto the budget bill!!

   Get a clue. If all you read or listen to is Fox News, you are being duped.

   Posted by Cannonball at 03/10/2009 @ 2:46pm

2. 40% of the Omnibus Spending Bill "earmarks"....

   were for Republican House members.

   I think they've realized how silly it is to claim to oppose them. Especially since NOT ONE of those Repubs will likely face a primary challenger in a tough year like 2010.

   Posted by Mask at 03/10/2009 @ 2:47pm

3. Anyone think there might be any political paybacks in those "ear marks"?...the"designated spending for a particular group...?"

   Posted by YourJomamma at 03/10/2009 @ 2:54pm

4. The URLs are too long so paste in sections.

   Posted by Cannonball at 03/10/2009 @ 2:46pm | ignore this person | warn this person

   www.tinyurl.com

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/10/2009 @ 3:31pm

5. Posted by Mask at 03/10/2009 @ 2:47pm

   Yep. Neither party has any powers of introspection anymore. They don't have to improve. Just wait for the other guy to screw up.

   Personally, I think the Democrats, because they over-enfranchise the radical wing of the party that is hardly representative of their broader constituency, are a wee bit more dangerous than the Reps.

   But the choices are so odious I feel more effective as a citizen posting silly comments on a blog than doing something as futile as voting.

   Posted by gangpapist at 03/10/2009 @ 3:40pm

6. nice civics lesson, melissa.

   next time give a little history lesson everyone should already know anyway as well to the loud aynrandian right koolaid swillers so the can understand what just happened to their stock value and the economy...

   become a master of the obvious - the beginning and end of wisdom.

   guess thed devil's always in the details, eh?

   but "earmarks" is just one of the right's meaning-fuzzy bugaboo shibolleths they bark forth from time to time in frightening unaanimity...

   but like chris matthews' flaying of radio talk show host kevin james over the word "appeasement"

   http://tinyurl.com/5f4fo9

   ...apparantly many of the righty parrots seem to barely know the meaning of their approved duckpeak...

   perhaps they should just revert to beavis&buttheadspeak, reducing all reality to "cool" and "sucks"...

   Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/10/2009 @ 3:43pm

7. Posted by gangpapist at 03/10/2009 @ 3:40pm

   Seems the Repubs let THEIR radical wing take over and...

   4100+ American soldiers died.

   So...who's "more dangerous"?

   Posted by Mask at 03/10/2009 @ 3:43pm

8. This rationale is such baloney....and i am a liberal!

   There is local government, and state government, and the federal government. Where does this writer get the idea that the system was specifically set up by the Founding Fathers with provisions for the federal government to hand out money to benefit only a small amount of people at the local level?

   That is so....incorrect. and SO smugly and condescendingly written as well.

   "Get it?"

   Posted by Barlodio at 03/10/2009 @ 3:45pm

9. Looks like Lyndon Baines Obamanation and the Undemocratic party are going down the yellow brick road again!

   History never repeats itself exactly. But Barack Obama is making the same mistakes today that LBJ made in 1965.

   He has ordered 17,000 more U.S. troops into Afghanistan, as the situation deteriorates and the NATO allies pull out. He has no exit strategy. He has read a repudiation of George Bush as a mandate for a government seizure of wealth and power that exceeds anything attempted in the Great Society.

   Fully half of the $3.55 trillion in spending Obama will preside over this year will not be covered by tax revenue but by red ink. The money will have to be borrowed from abroad or printed by the Fed.

   Not only is Barack running a deficit four times as large as Bush's largest, he has called for $1 trillion in new taxes on America's most successful, who have already seen their savings and pensions ravaged.

   He wants a cap-and-trade system to deal with a global-warming or climate-change crisis many scientists believe is a hoax. He is going to provide health care for all, including immigrants, millions of whom arrive uninsured every year.

   He is going to plunge scores of billions more into education, though education has eaten up the wealth of an empire, as SAT scores sink further and further below the apogee of 1964, before LBJ and the feds barged in. He is going to ask Congress for authority to spend another $750 billion rescuing the banks.

   He is going to find the cure for cancer. He is going to ensure every kid gets a college education. He is going to drop half of all wage-earners off the tax rolls, while the top 2 percent, who already pay 40 percent of all income taxes, are forced to cough up more.

   Obama is misreading the ele

   Posted by comancheamerican at 03/10/2009 @ 3:53pm

10. Obama is misreading the election returns. When America voted to cancel the White House lease of Mr. Bush, it did not vote Barack Obama a blank check.

    By misinterpreting his mandate, Obama has accomplished something John McCain could not -- unite the Republican Party and instill in it a new esprit de corps. For the Obama budget is an insult to the core belief of the party -- that free people, not coercive government, should shape the character of society.

    By daring Republicans to fight on the issue of a $1.75 trillion deficit, Obama has liberated the GOP from any obligation to him. He has come out of the closet as a radical liberal spoiling for a fight over an agenda of radical change.

    Sooner than any might have thought, we have clarity.

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/10/2009 @ 3:53pm

11. the system was specifically set up by the Founding Fathers with provisions for the federal government to hand out money to benefit only a small amount of people at the local level?

    That is so....incorrect. and SO smugly and condescendingly written as well.

    "Get it?"

    Posted by Barlodio at 03/10/2009 @ 3:45pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    did you really read the entry? she offered a cogent civics lessons...so your problem is with the fact that the federal government spends taxpayer money? or are you upset that it is distributed unequally?

    are you assuming that your political ideology is the same as that of the founding fathers?

    i wonder how many on this board, much less on the jaywalking streets, could have explained the process and phenomenon half as cogently as the author...

    although wikipedia is always a click away...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/10/2009 @ 3:56pm

12. "he has called for $1 trillion in new taxes on America's most successful, who have already seen their savings and pensions ravaged"

    (yawn)

    Posted by darladoon at 03/10/2009 @ 3:58pm

13. Just as I predicted Obamanation and the Undemocratic party are reliving to a great extend the LBJ "Great Society" moment of historical garbage again! They can expect the same results. This is going to be the longest and lousyest 4yr. dictatorship we have ever experienced.

    The only NEW jobs created by the porkulus spending bill are government jobs and jobs for illegal aliens NOT American citizens! Construction is over 38% illegals and visiting alien workers and that is where the money is going!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/10/2009 @ 3:59pm

14. >>>We need to think about the value of projects within a larger framework of both responsible fiscal governance at the federal level and responsiveness to constituency needs at a local level. <<<

    The problem is with SECRET earmarks in which the source and recipient are not disclosed to the public. Also, earmarks that are "pay-offs" for votes in Congress need to be scrutinized as these are often (but not always) wasteful.

    Posted by Metteyya at 03/10/2009 @ 4:05pm

15. (yawn)

    Posted by darladoon at 03/10/2009 @ 3:58pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    Yea, for those not working or economically contributing to society it is a big yawn! Sit back and collect your nanny state checks!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/10/2009 @ 4:06pm

16. Melissa Harris-Lacewell is (from her Bio), "an associate professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University".....

    A liberal, Barlodio @ 3:45pm, covered a good part of my reaction.

    Folks, professors such as Melissa, is why our kids are getting brain-washed......Garbage In, and well, You Know the Rest of the Story!

    Posted by Happy at 03/10/2009 @ 4:07pm

17. Seems the Repubs let THEIR radical wing take over and...

    4100+ American soldiers died.

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2009 @ 3:43pm

    Soldiers know they might be killed when they volunteer.

    The radical wing of the Reps would not balloon the deficit trying to be "compassionate" and spending billions on things like AIDs in Africa.

    The neocons were do-gooder breakaways from the realpolitikers that used to be the radicals as defined by the Left.

    Bush took some powers, maybe some that he should not have, while trying to fight a war that we are all learning how to fight. He did not come close to the liberty-for-security swaps that have been made in the past (some by heroes of the Left). Obama will now keep most of those powers for himself, and it will be entertaining to see the Left shuffle and dodge.

    The important thing for the Left, from day one, was hating Bush.

    He was a bad president, and disastrous on domestic policy, but radicalism had nothing to do with it.

    Posted by gangpapist at 03/10/2009 @ 4:11pm

18. One has to wonder, an Ivory-Tower lib professor, ever, ever stop and think, what was America like in the days before Earmarks?

    They are a creature of recent politics and only in the past decade or so, and BUSH is guilty of not ever vetoing any, have they exploded....in the meantime, our politics have become more divisive and corruptions rampant.

    I'll also wager, for profs like Harris-Lacewell--note her NOW-style last name--she thinks the Great Society has been wonderful for African-Americans.....after all, gave her plenty of AA issues to both write her thesis (just a guess) and make a BS living!

    Posted by Happy at 03/10/2009 @ 4:14pm

19. Speaking of REAL failures, how about Obamanation and the Undemocratic congress creating jobs for illegal aliens NOT AMERICAN citizens! Just as I commented on the Porkulus spending bill it will happen!

    An estimated 300,000 construction jobs paid for by the stimulus plan will go to illegal workers after leading Democrats removed a provision requiring verification of citizenship, a leading immigration expert tells Newsmax.

    The House version of the $787 billion stimulus bill required verification of the legal residency of anyone put to work by its spending. But that provision was removed from the bill before members of Congress met to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the bill.

    Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), tells Newsmax the verification provision was deleted by Democratic leaders even before the bill reached the conference committee, where differences between House and Senate legislation are normally ironed out.

    "When it got to conference, the top people -- not just the conference members, but the top people: Reid, Pelosi, and Obama -- chose to kill the provision and not include it," Camarota says. "This was a purposeful decision."

    This is how dictatorships function NOT democracy and that is how Obamanation and the Undemocrats want it to be!!!!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/10/2009 @ 4:41pm

20. sigh...

    the article pretty nicely sums up what an earmark is...

    perhaps pork barrel is a better catch phrase...guess ya gotta change the demonizing/demonized word that means "thing that sux" every so often...

    Posted by ibbleblibble at 03/10/2009 @ 4:45pm

21. Posted by comancheamerican at 03/10/2009 @ 4:41pm

    If there are so many "illegals" in the construction trade, why didn't the REPUBLICANS crack down on EMPLOYERS who hire these folks when they controlled the White House and Congress?

    Illegals are great when they put money in your pocket as a business person, but when you have to pay for their children's education, then suddenly we have an "illegal" problem.

    Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds!

    Posted by Metteyya at 03/10/2009 @ 4:50pm

22. I really do not have a problem with earmarks as a rule, it is correct that this is the best way to get the money "back to the people" in the form of new schools, roads, and research projects. My issue, for many years during both republican and democratic administrations and congress(s) is that all bills get earmarks, spending bills like budgets are fine (the current hubbud is over a spending bill) but the process has evolved to the point that bills passed for a specific reason have earmarks! Crime bills have spending for bridges, healthcare bills have spending for a new freeway bypass, etc … When did every bill become a way for a member to slip in some special project?

    Posted by rloghry at 03/10/2009 @ 5:27pm

23. Go Melissa! I work in government and often process local earmarks so the non profits can get funded. In the last year earmarks have bought computers for a program for high school drop-outs, bought lights for a community program's parking lot, painted another community center, and is helping to rebuild a public housing project (back when HUD and the Bush administration were not funding public housing). These are not bad things and they are definitely not pork. They are project important to the community and thus to the congresspersons who sponsored the earmarks.

    Don't get me wrong. I think we are probably paying for some terrible things that are a waste of money. But with congresspersons now putting their names on the earmarks, a community knows exactly who to blame and can choose not to reelect them.

    mayah

    http://mhasegawa.wordpress.com

    Posted by mayah at 03/10/2009 @ 6:19pm

24. It seems strange that legislators like McCain want the president to do congress' job. The congress 'holds the purse strings' in the federal government. Earmarks are what they should be...legislators voting on what money should be spent and where it goes.

    Of course, the democrats have improved the system since they have been in power. Unlike the republicans (notice the lack of name calling), who think secrecy in government is better than transparency, the democrats have made it possible for Americans to know what the earmarks are, who wrote them, and how much they will cost.

    This concept of transparency and honesty is lost on republicans and our right wing friends.

    For what it's worth only 50 days in, this country is lucky to have President Obama at the helm. Of course, it's too early to tell if he'll get us out of the laissez faire capitalism induced stupor, but with the steadiness of leadership he's shown so far, the chances of success are good.

    Posted by erazma at 03/10/2009 @ 6:34pm

25. Posted by comancheamerican at 03/10/2009 @ 3:53pm

    RIO, why are you plagiarizing Pat Buchanan?

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2009 @ 6:49pm

26. If there are so many "illegals" in the construction trade, why didn't the REPUBLICANS crack down on EMPLOYERS who hire these folks when they controlled the White House and Congress?

    Illegals are great when they put money in your pocket as a business person, but when you have to pay for their children's education, then suddenly we have an "illegal" problem.

    Republican hypocrisy knows no bounds!

    Posted by Metteyya at 03/10/2009 @ 4:50pm | ignore this person | warn this person

    1.Unlike the Undemocrats the Republicans allowed them to vote on bills, have input in the writing of bills and everytime an Undemocrat objected to anything republicans wanted they cry to the liberal national media who turns public opinion AGAINST them so they can't!!!

    Why didn't the Undemocrats for the last 2yrs, why won't they for the next 4yrs.?

    2.We pay for their education anyway without them paying tax dollars, we provide for their healthcare using emergency rooms like primary providers, and you and I get to PAY for it ALL with our tax money!

    Now the Undemocrats not only pass bills benifiting illegals rather than American citizens, but we still have to pay for the ed. and healthcare!!!!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/10/2009 @ 7:08pm

27. A little Stroll down memory lane

    "In 2006, Democrats, then in the minority, made earmark overhaul a campaign theme. Last year, they passed laws requiring lawmakers for the first time to take public responsibility for the earmarks they added to spending bills. On Tuesday, Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the House Democrats' campaign committee, called Mr. Bush "late to the game."

    http://tinyurl.com/aznxla

    During last week's presidential debate in New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware took another strong stand in support of public campaign financing. When the debate shifted to earmarks, Biden injected that the way to eliminate earmarks is to switch to a public campaign finance system. Biden argued that as long as there are massive contributions pouring into the system, there will be earmarks attached to bills.

    http://tinyurl.com/ckxz4s

    Sept 2007 SF Chronicle

    Pelosi told the Wall Street Journal last year that the multibillion-dollar earmarking process had become a "monster." "Personally, myself, I'd get rid of all of them," she said. "None of them is worth the skepticism, the cynicism the public has ... and the fiscal irresponsibility of it."

    Pelosi still favors ending the practice, said her communications director, Brendan Daly, although there is little support in Congress from either party to do it. "With the system we have ... she's going to continue to try to get money for the district, for her constituents," he said.

    http://tinyurl.com/b4hp8h

    Hmm, how'd that work out?

    Posted by antisocialist at 03/10/2009 @ 9:02pm

28. Spending bill got cloture...

    62 to 35.

    Are there 62 Democrats in the Senate?????

    Posted by Mask at 03/10/2009 @ 9:14pm

29. Pelosi: "With the system we have ... she's going to continue to try to get money for the district, for her constituents," he said.

    http://tinyurl.com/b4hp8h

    Hmm, how'd that work out?

    Posted by antisocialist at 03/10/2009 @ 9:02pm

    Guess she convinced Ron Paul to grab all he can...to lead the Houston-area delegation.

    Needs Presidential Leadership....McCain would've done it...and has the track record...Magic said what the TelePrompter told him to say but has zero conviction now, nor the next budget....I'll believe it when I see it, NOT a minute earlier from this Lier-in-Chief!

    Posted by Happy at 03/10/2009 @ 10:55pm

30. He was a bad president, and disastrous on domestic policy, but radicalism had nothing to do with it.

    Posted by gangpapist

    Huh? Stolen election. My Pet Goat. Preemptive war. Bush doctrine. Democratizing the Middle East. Privatizing Social Security. Katrina, Hurricane. Domestic spying. Torture. Gitmo. Gonzo. Attorneygate. Haliburton. Downing Street Memo. Cheyney. Shoe used as missile. Etc...

    Posted by koroviev at 03/10/2009 @ 11:09pm

31. Koroviev-hate bush hate bush hate bush, hey buddy your record is scratched!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/10/2009 @ 11:52pm

32. In truth, Obama and his majorities in Congress are injecting the most extreme economic program in the history of the U.S. No wonder that after the inauguration, the stock market did not recover on new confidence and hope, but has plummeted another 25%. Our business community knows, and our citizens know, that we are losing our right to strive, to succeed, and to live our lives in independence and liberty.

    But out of this crisis comes not just danger for the nation, but also opportunity for conservatives. Who will save the nation if not us? Conservative leaders of both parties should call for the abandonment of this blind slavish adherence to old 20th century left-wing ideology.

    My own personal experience is that American businesses flee overseas to avoid the high American corporate income tax rate. If we want jobs, and not just redistribution of wealth, we should cut the corporate income tax to zero. Save this aimless stimulus bailout money. A zero corporate income tax would cost $275-$340 billion, about one-third of the stimulus spending. The result would be an explosion of new capital investment in the U.S., creating millions of new jobs. Make the tax revenue back from the income tax from those who get the new jobs.

    It is time to inject some stability and an optimistic sense of direction. Our economic policy, like our energy policy, is going in the exact opposite direction from where we should be going. It's time to right the ship. If we conservatives don't point the way, who will?

    There is not a conservative who does not agree with the former governor of virginia on these points.

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/10/2009 @ 11:53pm

33. comancheamerican: your comments would be best suited on comment thread for an article to which they actually apply. If your comments were an assignment, you'd get an "F" for not answering the question.

    Happy, where do you get off making assumptions about the author? Or thinking that they are actually the matter at hand? You have an Ad Hominem argument. You defame the author and use her alleged political allegiances as arguments against her (clearly a woman retaining any individual identity is unacceptable to you and makes her an already suspect person) while they are irrelevant to her argument and you do not adequately addressing her argument.

    The point of the article is:

    1) earmarks are not themselves bad. The process may be, and they may be used badly but are not in and of themselves bad.

    2) federal tax dollars have long been allocated for state and local projects that otherwise could not gain adequate funding.

    To make assumptions about the author's job, research, or value of her discipline, or her decisions around something so personal as her name is idiotic; as the saying goes, to assume makes and ass out of you and me (or in this case, just you).

    And I will happily brainwash your kids any day if it means they develop critical thinking skills and the POV articulation that you clearly lack.

    Cheers!

    Posted by lb at 03/11/2009 @ 12:38am

34. Koroviev-hate bush hate bush hate bush, hey buddy your record is scratched!

    Posted by comancheamerican

    The question was about Bush being radical...What did I write that said hate him or whatever. It's just a collection of phrases related to Bush. Ok, "stolen election" is negative but the rest were all part of Bush's Presidency.

    Posted by koroviev at 03/11/2009 @ 01:14am

35. Posted by lb at 03/11/2009 @ 12:38am | ignore this person | warn this person

    You ignore the obvious, the nation is not about critical thinking but total focused on the evasion of and obfuscation of the more pertinent discussions American citizens are actually concerned with! The economy is in shambles and the government under Obamanation and the Demoncrats are MORE intrested in consolidating their power now and in the future and could care LESS what happens to the individuals, businesses, and the real future of the nation! That is more relavant than the milk and pudding slop usually served here!

    Go ahead eat your mush if you must!

    Posted by comancheamerican at 03/11/2009 @ 02:38am

36. Koroviev-hate bush hate bush hate bush, hey buddy your record is scratched!

    Posted by comancheamerican

    Actually, you don't know how wrong you are...

    A few years ago, the war in Iraq wasn't going well and a lot of people were being killed.

    G.W. Bush went on tv and said he would give up golf because he felt bad about the war.

    People were very critical of Bush. They said it was shallow, meaningless, callous and facile. They said "what a spoiled, dumb rich kid buffoon."

    And I said...No way man, he gave up golf.

    Posted by koroviev at 03/11/2009 @ 04:55am

37. Magic said what the TelePrompter told him to say but has zero conviction now, nor the next budget....I'll believe it when I see it, NOT a minute earlier from this Lier-in-Chief!----Posted by Happy at 03/10/2009 @ 10:55pm

    "I'll repost this and let it sink in a bit.....about the state of our country and the general lack of respect toward authority and of course, BDS!"----Posted by 2HAPPY at 08/26/2008 @ 11:45am

    Posted by Mask at 03/11/2009 @ 07:43am

38. This rationale is such baloney....and i am a liberal!

    There is local government, and state government, and the federal government. Where does this writer get the idea that the system was specifically set up by the Founding Fathers with provisions for the federal government to hand out money to benefit only a small amount of people at the local level?

    That is so....incorrect. and SO smugly and condescendingly written as well.

    "Get it?"

    Posted by Barlodio at 03/10/2009 @ 3:45pm

    Welcome to the conservative movement. You hit the nail squarely on the head. You better be prepared to take the heat from your so-called "liberal" friends because you just lost many of them.

    If I may point out the idiocy of Ms. Harris-Lacewell's article, there are NO roads between South Carolina and Georgia. There are only roads in SC and GA and some meet at the border.

    Posted by fram at 03/11/2009 @ 08:41am

39. If you are short on math, earmarks make up only 1.73% of the entire budget.

    Posted by Cannonball at 03/10/2009 @ 2:46pm

    And this rationalization is supposed to make it alright? Lame...very lame.

    I don't care which party affiliation is attached to which earmark...get rid of them all.

    Posted by fram at 03/11/2009 @ 09:16am

40. 2) federal tax dollars have long been allocated for state and local projects that otherwise could not gain adequate funding.

    Posted by lb at 03/11/2009 @ 12:38am

    If these STATE and LOCAL projects are so important, have the STATE and LOCAL government's pay for them. How does it make any sense that we should send tax dollars to D.C only to have it sent back? Meanwhile, people in the middle of this process is skimmimg from it. They are called bureaucrats. In other words, someone who specializes in red tape.

    If state and local government officials want or need to raise raxes, let them. Remember...they need to get re-elected too.

    Posted by fram at 03/11/2009 @ 09:37am

41. Here's an earmark for you...

    Bloomberg..

    " China vehicle sales surged 25 percent in February, the first gain in four months, after the government cut taxes on some models, helping the country extend its lead as the world's largest auto market this year.

    or this..

    "GM, the biggest overseas automaker in China, raised its forecast for the nation's market growth this year to a range of between 5 percent and 10 percent from an earlier prediction of less than 3 percent, GM Asia-Pacific President Nick Reilly, said last week."

    And what do the Dems want to do to American business and consumers to get the economy to grow?

    "Volkswagen AG, the second biggest automaker in China, said last month that it plans to double local sales by adding at least four new models a year until 2018. The carmaker sold 1.02 million vehicles in China last year."

    "India, the world's second-most populous nation, also had an increase in February auto sales, the first gain in five months, as emerging markets avoid the world of the global recession. "

    The exact opposite...tax them.

    Damn commies...figured cutting taxes with spur economic growth...we will show them...just how wrong they are...why, next year lets have GM US compare with GM China and India...see who has growth...Bush is probably there helping them with economic lying..

    Anyone wonder why I am focusing on Asia as the economic model for my growth in income and business....they learned from us...cut taxes...and we are learning from them...how to have a 5 year plan run by govt hacks and experts....

    Posted by YourJomamma at 03/11/2009 @ 09:41am

42. Happy, where do you get off making assumptions about the author? Or thinking that they are actually the matter at hand? You have an Ad Hominem argument. You defame the author and use her alleged political allegiances as arguments against her (clearly a woman retaining any individual identity is unacceptable to you and makes her an already suspect person) while they are irrelevant to her argument and you do not adequately addressing her argument.

    Posted by lb at 03/11/2009 @ 12:38am

    Seeing any new `author', one needs background ("bio") in order to take in his/her view with the necessary grains of salt. It's called the `vetting' process which requires critical thinking skills; something the youth of today--brainwashed by the likes of this particular writer & YOU--clearly lack & resulted in The Messiah's large margin on Nov. 4th. It is these youth's economic/professional future, that is most affected (negatively from a no/low-growth economy)...since they don't much care, nor need, universal health care.

    Sure, I slam her since as far as I'm concerned, there is nothing that can defend earmarks. They are among the very top causes of our governing mess and it's just plain sick that an academic ?intellectual? seeks to defend such grotesque practice. Perhaps she (& you) is/are so young and has/have no political/economic awareness of the good ole days of Pre-Earmarks & Pre-rampant corruptions.

    Posted by Happy at 03/11/2009 @ 10:48am

43. Posted by YourJomamma at 03/11/2009 @ 09:41am

    Hey, MAASCH, question-

    What ARE the personal and corporate income tax rates in China?

    Posted by Mask at 03/11/2009 @ 11:22am

44. Earmarks or pork. The truth is, it is and has been fraudulent, unconstitutional graft. It is just that people want to latch onto the sows teat.

    Posted by cashews at 03/11/2009 @ 1:12pm