A Voluntary Earmark Ban is Only Half the Battle

Conn Carroll / December 13, 2010

“There will be no earmarks in the 112th Congress. Period.” That is what House Majority Leader-elect Eric Cantor (R-VA) tweeted in response to a Politico article last week reporting that some GOP House members were contemplating breaking their no-earmark pledge. Good for Cantor. Ending earmarking is an essential step toward cutting Washington spending. Unfortunately some of Cantor’s caucus need an education about the unnecessary harm earmarks cause. Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) told Politico:

Let’s look at transportation. How do you handle that without earmarks, since that’s a heavily earmarked bill? How do you handle a Corps of Engineers project? I think, right now, we go through a period where we have gone one step further than we meant to go, and there are some unintended consequences.

Kingston, and journalists like Mike Allen, need a history lesson. The federal government’s dependence on earmarking as THE method for allocating transportation funds is a very recent development. The Heritage Foundation’s Run Utt recently detailed to The Washington Examiner’s Mark Tapscott: “Until 1984, earmarks in transportation appropriations bills averaged about three a year …the 1982 bill included just 10 earmarks, while 1987’s authorized 152.  Back then they were called ‘demonstration’ projects, today they are called ‘high priority’ projects, indicating that the process has corrupted even the language.” (more…)