Posted by Streamline on 03/16/09 1:42 PM   [Newer: New Hampshire in uproar over US Administration] [Older: Dear IRS, I'm sorry to inform you.]

Earmarks Don't Add Up
By  Dr. Ron Paul

Earmarks seem to be the hot topic this week, and as a fiscal conservative I am dismayed so many people deliberately distort the earmarking process and grandstand to make political points. It is an easy thing to do with earmarks. It takes a little more time and patience to grasp the reality of what earmarks really are.

To be sure, if earmarks were the driving force behind explosive government spending as some have been led to believe, that would be a good reason for all the fuss. The misconception seems to be that members of Congress put together a bunch of requests for project funding, add them all together and come up with a budget. The truth is, it is not done that way. The total level of spending is determined by the Congressional leadership and the appropriators before any Member has a chance to offer any amendments. Members’ requests are simply recommendations to allocate parts of that spending for certain items in that members’ district or state. If funds are not designated, they revert to non-designated spending controlled by bureaucrats in the executive branch. In other words, when a designation request makes it into the budget, it subtracts funds out of what is available to the executive branch and bureaucrats in various departments, and targets it for projects that the people and their representatives request in their districts. If a congressman does not submit funding requests for his district the money is simply spent elsewhere. To eliminate all earmarks would be to further consolidate power in the already dominant executive branch and not save a penny.

Furthermore, designating how money is spent provides a level of transparency and accountability over taxpayer dollars that we don’t have with general funds. I argue that all spending should be decided by Congress so that we at least know where the money goes. This has been a major problem with TARP funding. The public and Congress are now trying to find out where all that money went.  

The real issue is that the overall budget is too big, by far, which is why I always vote against it. But attacking the 1 percent that was earmarked solves nothing. The whole issue is a distraction from the real problems we face, which are that the Federal Government will absorb over 1/3 of our country’s GDP this year and taxpayers are forced to fork over more than half their income to fund government at all levels. On top of that, the national debt is $11 trillion, which is $36,000 per citizen. The recent increases in bailouts, government spending and money creation is going to hobble our economy for decades. We must curb the government’s appetite severely if this country is ever to thrive again. The noise over “earmarks” is a red herring and a distraction from the real issue of uncommitted spending.

It is time to attack the entirety of government spending. We especially need a full account of the activities of the Federal Reserve that spends and creates trillions of dollars with no meaningful oversight. This is a huge problem that needs immediate attention.

Posted by Ron Paul (03-16-2009, 11:28 AM) filed under Monetary Policy

Posted 03/16/09 7:28 PM gride huntington beach, CA

print ~ cut ~ fold ~ distribute ~ repeat http://thepressurecooker.com/files/TST_03162009.pdf

Posted 03/16/09 10:01 PM MarilyninLakeJackson Lake Jackson, TX

Streamline, thanks for sharing from "Texas Straight Talk".

Posted 03/17/09 11:07 AM dbhohio47 Columbus, OH

While I understand, appreciate, and agree with everything that Dr. Paul had to say about earmarks in his Straight Talk piece, it is still very difficult for me to reconcile. Maybe I am too cynical of the process of government, but, to me, earmarks reek of being golden opportunities for legislators to 'sell' their influence to their well-heeled and connected constituency in exchange for campaign contributions or other even more nefarious forms of 'compensation'. I, like the majority within the general public, see the use of earmarks as legislators' exercising their self-appointed means to be "on the take". The sheer number of these earmarks and the manner in which they are slipped into unrelated legislation demonstrates to me that they receive little or no scrutiny and are therefore never exposed to, let alone pass, a "stink test" for being legitimate uses of funds. Under these circumstances, it is very difficult to appreciate Dr. Paul's logic in rationalizing and even condoning earmarks as at least being a means for quasi-transparency. I feel that, in this light, Dr. Paul's "more earmarks needed" argument is being twisted in much the same way that Rush Limbaugh's desire for the President to "fail" has been. And perhaps appropriately so. Emphasis should not be placed on condoning or rationalizing the earmark process, but rather in pointing them out as a shining example of why those funds should never have been appropriated up to a federal level in the first place. It is only at the level of State and local government that proper scrutinization can exist in determining how these earmark funds are spent or if they are even needed in the first place. In fact, in following the 'transparency' argument to its logical conclusion, it would seem that the appropriate mechanism for handling the situation would be to, ironically enough, add yet another layer of government to police the legitimacy of earmark requests prior to their being voted on. If it is inevitable that an excess of funds will continue to arrive in Washington, perhaps a system whereby all campaign contributions and lobbying dollars are subject to some form of tax where the revenues from such taxation fund a means for a nonpartisan preliminary review process to bring the specific requests to light prior to their being voted on would return some checks and balances. Such a system would be cumbersome enough that nothing would ever get voted on and the money therefore never spent. Hmmm... maybe I'm onto something here. Then again, there is always anarchy.