This Little Piggy...

As I write this, the Congress is putting the final touches on President Obama’s budget proposal. It is, for the time being anyway, the Mother of all budgets in the size of its request adding up to $3,500,000,000,000 (three and a half trillion dollars), more or less. But the greatest angst seems to be over the earmarks inevitably attached. “Earmarks” and “pork” have become the rallying cry for those interested in overhauling our budgetary process and that puzzles me on several fronts. (Believe it or not, I actually did some research on this and suggest you look at www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/hjackson/Earmarks_16.pdf to fill in any blanks.)

First of all, “pork” is nothing new to politics in this country. Long before Senator William Proxmire, (D, Wisconsin) started handing out his Golden Fleece awards it was common practice for representatives to “bring home the bacon” for their constituents to enjoy and hence forth result in re-election. Perhaps that is where the word “pork” originated. I don’t know for sure (and don’t really care).

Earmarks can be considered advanced pork procurement in that they can be added to the budget anonymously and absent any debate. And they can be directed to a specific use, too, and avoid competitive bidding. Perhaps this is where the taxpayer ire springs from, but, once again, the practice is nothing more than a perfection of the pork policies of the past.

OK, so here we are, madder than hell and not willing to take it anymore. Except, of course, for the projects headed to our own backyards. Those projects are needed. Those projects are beneficial, unlike projects in other areas that are boondoggles. Yeah, right. There is no reason why someone in Maine should give one hoot about how someone in Oregon spends their money (and vice versa). A vision of a gored ox springs to mind, for some reason.

Face it, folks: pork, earmarks, and the like are an inherent part of our political process and the wail for their removal serves no useful purpose. That doesn’t mean, though, that the process cannot be refined so as to prevent the “picking fly poop out of pepper” exercise in which we are currently immersed.

The earmarks in the current proposed budget account for about 2% of the total request. Historically, this is about the average included in each budget. So how about this: we take the annual budget, absent any earmarks or pork of any kind, and add 2% to the bottom line for just those areas of expenditure. Now we take that 2% and divvy it up equally between each Congressional representative. After all, the House is made up of members according to population so this method would seem to satisfy each citizen equally.

Now it’s left up to the representative to dole out the funds accordingly. Neighboring districts could pool funds for the purposes of roads and other infrastructure projects that would extend beyond specific legislative boundaries. There are those in the House that abhor the idea of earmarks (or so they claim) and, for those, an option to pass should be included with such funds going either to their state’s general fund or back to federal coffers. The fact that a given district has funds available for local use should not preclude applicable bidding processes from taking place. If nothing else, this provides some transparency to the affair and motivates our politicos from doling out the dough in a less-than-legitimate manner. “Senators?”, you ask. Since senators serve in a less-than-local capacity, I see no reason why they would need earmarks or pork of any kind. They’ve taken advantage of them in the past, but just think how happy John McCain would be if the temptation was removed altogether.

We are now left with a process that removes anonymous finagling and creates a degree of accountability in the distribution of these funds. Will they be spent wisely and for the benefit of the majority? That decision will be left up to the voters when they decide whether to send their representatives back to D.C. or not. And best of all, we can now turn our attention to the other 98% of the budget: where it should have been from the get go.