‘Even Though Earmarks Are Gone, There Are Still Billions of Dollars Available’
That quote from a local government official in California sums up why banning earmarks won’t do much to rein in the size and scope of the federal government. The quote comes from a McClatchy Newspapers article on lobbying expeditions to Washington undertaken by local government officials who want federal taxpayers to pick up the tab for projects in their backyards.
From the article:
[Fresno County supervisor Henry] Perea has joined 19 other Fresno County business, academic and political leaders in this week's three-and-a-half day lobbying venture on behalf of transportation and other projects. Separately, a four-member delegation from the Merced County city of Livingston also is on the prowl.
Billed under the unifying ‘One Voice’ banner, the Fresno County wish list ranges from a transportation bill that might help improve State Route 99 to assistance with controlling air pollution and streamlining environmental reviews for roadwork…
Underscoring the potential regional competition, four representatives from Livingston are separately making the rounds this week in their own search for federal assistance.
‘We want to hit up some congressmen,’ Livingston Mayor Rodrigo Espinoza said Monday.
Federal grants, too, are part of the Livingston delegation's agenda, with city officials targeting a variety of potential opportunities, including funding, to help nurture a downtown cultural arts district.
If local officials in Livingston want funds for a cultural arts district, then they should be traveling around Livingston “hitting up” local taxpayers to pay for it. But with “billions of dollars” available in Washington, why would Livingston officials take the politically unpleasant route of asking their voters to foot the bill? Of course, federal policymakers are typically only too happy to oblige because they’ll get to attend the ribbon cutting ceremony and brag about their ability to bring home the bacon. Meanwhile, the federal taxpayer continues to get soaked, the government’s debt mounts, and the Beltway Neros fiddle.
Bring home the bacon? But isn’t there an earmark ban? There is, but the programs that policymakers were earmarking money from still exist. That means that the federal dollars continue to flow; the only thing that changed is the course of the river. An earmark ban is good, but as I’ve repeatedly discussed, earmarks are only a symptom of the problem.
So let me make a suggestion to reporters: the next time you’re interviewing a federal policymaker who supports keeping the ban on earmarks, ask them if their staffers are helping the folks back home obtain federal grants, loans, etc. When they respond in the affirmative but argue that they’re merely making sure that their constituents receive their “fair share” of the loot, ask them how the federal government is supposed to get its finances in order if policymakers won’t stop putting parochial concerns ahead of the national interest. You might have to keep pressing, but eventually the hypocrisy will expose itself.
See this Cato essay for more on federal subsidies to state and local government.
