This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Nov. 17, 2010 - WASHINGTON - The effort to stop congressional earmarks -- appropriations for specific projects that legislators insert into spending bills -- picked up steam Tuesday when Senate Republicans agreed to an earmark "moratorium" and U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., vowed to offer an amendment to ban them outright.
But that deficit-cutting campaign, backed by an unlikely alliance of earmark critics ranging from tea party activists to President Barack Obama, appeared to be headed into a confrontation with another odd alliance that included the congressional Democratic leadership and a few earmark-backing Republicans, such as retiring U.S. Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond of Missouri.
In separate but confrontational comments Tuesday, McCaskill, who has refused to support earmarks, said that "tax dollars shouldn't be doled out based on politics or secret deals." Bond, who as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee has submitted tens of millions of dollars in earmarks, contended that eliminating earmarks would allow "unelected Washington bureaucrats . . . to decide how to spend 100 percent of taxpayer dollars."
Caught momentarily in the crosshairs of Missouri tea party activists who complained that he had not been out in front in opposing earmarks, U.S. Sen.-elect Roy Blunt -- currently a Republican U.S. House member from Springfield -- emerged from the Republican Senate caucus late Tuesday and said he would observe the earmark moratorium and also introduce a plan to cut federal discretionary spending -- not including mandated expenditures such as Social Security -- by the total amount of earmarks in the most recent budget year.
Asserting that "earmark reform is meaningless unless it is coupled with the discipline to stop the spending," Blunt said that his main goal "is to cut the projects and then don't spend the money. That's real reform, and it will have an impact on the nation's deficit." He called his concept "a critical step toward cutting spending and, more importantly, applying that savings to reducing the deficit."
Before Blunt's statement, some Tea Party loyalists in St. Louis had complained that the senator-elect had not been vocal in opposing earmarks. They sent out a missive Tuesday morning saying that Blunt's signing of the "Tea Party Treaty" in October was "conveying the message that he understands the concerns of his constituents, as well as his duty to them. That being said, it is now time to put his ink-mark where his mouth is." They were concerned that Blunt was not among the 15 co-sponsors of the proposed moratorium.
But Blunt said after Senate Republicans had approved the moratorium ban by voice vote that ending earmarks alone won't solve the deficit problem. "If we're serious about reining in spending, let's apply a little sanity to this earmark debate and use the savings to decrease overall spending," said Blunt, asserting that the cuts he proposes would "represent an important step toward getting our books in balance and earning the taxpayers' trust."
While Tea Party activists have seized on an earmark ban -- an idea pushed for years by U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Az., and backed by Obama when he ran against McCain in the 2008 presidential campaign -- as a way to reduce the budget deficit, earmarks in recent years have accounted for less than half of 1 percent (0.5 percent, or $16 billion) of the federal budget.
However, some watchdog groups have lobbied tirelessly against earmarks, asserting that the political process of inserting them into appropriations bills is a form of pork-barrel politics, even if many of the earmarked projects are worthy. Instead of earmarking, they say that legislators should simply bring worthy projects to the attention of federal agencies.
The Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan group, takes no position on earmarks but has called for more transparency in the process. The center's website features a detailed database tracking earmarks that is a joint project with Taxpayers for Common Sense.
McCaskill has taken the same position since being elected to the Senate four years ago. On Tuesday, she revealed that she and Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., planned to offer an amendment -- possibly as early as this week -- that would, in effect, stop earmarks by changing Senate rules and allowing individual senators to raise binding points of order against bills with earmarks. Also announcing support for that initiative was another Democrat, Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado.
McCaskill said she was working with Democratic leaders to schedule a vote. And the Senate majority leader, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., told journalists that he at some point would allow such a vote, even though he opposes an earmark ban. "I would be happy to work, to set up a reasonable time to have a debate on that and have a vote on it," Reid said. McCaskill told reporters that the timing of such a Senate vote was unclear, and she was unsure how many Senate Democrats would support the amendment. In the current, lame duck session, Democrats control 59 seats in the 100-seat Senate.
As a retiring senator, Bond had no vote in Tuesday's Senate Republican caucus, but he made it clear in a statement that he opposed any moratorium on justified earmarks. He argues that, without direction by Congress, many worthy projects in Missouri would not likely be approved by the federal bureaucracy.
"If you want the same unelected, Washington bureaucrats who brought us ObamaCare, the failed stimulus, and financial overregulation bills to decide how to spend 100 percent of taxpayer dollars then eliminating earmarks is the way to go," said Bond.
Another senator who has been generous in his use of earmarks is Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who was re-elected Tuesday as the second-ranking leader in the Democratic leadership. A spokeswoman for Durbin said Tuesday that he had backed limited earmarks for worthwhile projects but was willing to discuss the issue. She pointed to a statement he had posted on his website:
"Critics say the secrecy of the earmarking process can invite backroom deals and unethical -- or even corrupt -- behavior. In some well-publicized cases, they are clearly right," Durbin wrote. "That's why I release my list of spending requests every year.
"As the chair of the Illinois congressional delegation, a member of the Senate Leadership and the most senior person from our state on either Appropriations Committee, my office is at the center of our state's effort to make sure we receive our fair share of funds for projects large and small."
