The continuing struggle against bad spending habits
I know, I know. Earmarking is not a huge part of our budget. That doesn’t mean it’s not a symptom of the serious disease of spending money we don’t have. The process is just wrong. The earmarking I talked about in the above floor speech yesterday is a text book example. This program for emergency operation centers was designed by CONGRESS to be a competitive need and merit based program. Then along came the earmarkers. Senators from ten states, earmarked 50% of the money leaving the other 40 states to compete for only half of the money. Last year they earmarked more than half. This means that power and position trump merit based need. It should be no surprise that 9 of the 10 earmarks went to members of the Appropriations Committee. Pity the poor state that has a great need and a great proposal but isn’t lucky enough to have a Senator on the Appropriations Committee. Really, is this any way to spend the public’s money?
