The "Truth" About Earmarks

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Here is What President Bush said about Congressional earmarks in his State of the Union Address earlier this year: “The people’s trust in their government is undermined by congressional earmarks — special interest projects that are often snuck in at the last minute, without discussion or debate. Last year, I asked you to voluntarily cut the number and cost of earmarks in half. I also asked you to stop slipping earmarks into committee reports that never even come to a vote. Unfortunately, neither goal was met. So this time, if you send me an appropriations bill that does not cut the number and cost of earmarks in half, I’ll send it back to you with my veto. “And tomorrow, I will issue an executive order that directs federal agencies to ignore any future earmark that is not voted on by Congress. If these items are truly worth funding, Congress should debate them in the open and hold a public vote.” Below are links to two separate articles about the subject of earmarks; you'll see they make up either less than 1% or less than 2% of the total budget, depending on which source you choose to believe. By one account they totaled $20 for this year - surely a LOT of money to us but when it comes to the federal budget, not so much, believe it or not, particularly when you put it into perspective: 1) Cost of Iraq approx 3 Trillion and growing. 2) Potential damages of lending bubble approx 500 Billion perhaps more (I’m figuring a trillion+) which will cause interest rates (and hence the cost of servicing the US debt) to increase 3) Cost of “stimulus” package $150 Billion 4) Increase of US national debt over Bush admin time frame approx 5 TRILLION (including costs of Iraq and Afghanistan which are “off the books” aka the Chewco of United States of Enron.) http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/14396.html http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hjH0AxRZYYsl2uz6hfKQCPqEbjCgD91551181 This is NOT in defense of pork barrel spending but I would like to put things into perspective a bit. Bush didn't seem to mind the earmarks when they were mostly put there by his fellow Republicans but when it was the Democrats in the majority it was suddenly a different story, although they did cut back on earmarks by 50% according to some reports. I'd like to make the point that our government could find many ways to save money and cut foolish spending without getting rid of every program that was designed to help less fortunate Americans. A good case in point would be the letters that were sent out to everyone who was eligible to receive the tax stimulus checks - I heard over and over how the government wanted people to have their refunds and therefore their rebates directly deposited into their bank accounts, something I agree with totally. However, they still sent out letters to people before they received their checks then after they'd been deposited to explain how they were calculated. I wouldn't even guess at how much that cost but I'd imagine it added up to a substantial chunk and change that did NOT gave to be spent. I'm sure there are billions of other examples of similar wastes amounting to billions of dollars! We're always hearing how families have to "balance their budget" and can't run a deficit. This is true, but it's also true that most families, if possible, "blow" a few bucks now and then but in order to be able to do that they make sure to manage their money sensibly so there's a little extra to "waste" on "frivolous" things such as vacations, new toys for children or adults, restaurant meals, things like that. Why can't out government do the same? Annie