Ear marks and ethics

Years ago some guy named Lord Acton said power corrupts and this is never more evident than when one party controls the house, the senate and the White House. The first thing Republicans did when then got control was to introduce a bill to limit ethics control over their behavior but just as important was an attachment to that bill to bring back “ear marks”. For those of you who have forgotten what these little beauties are let me remind you. In public finance, an earmark is a provision inserted into a discretionary government spending appropriations bill that directs funds to a specific recipient while circumventing the merit-based or competitive funds allocation process This means that congressman Joe can put in a chunk of taxpayer money to build a whatever in his district so he can use that in his next reelection campaign. One of the main themes of this past election was getting rid of this kind of crap and the first thing they do is to try and bring back old crap. Prior to 2011 when ear marks ended spending was around 16 billion per year. Since that time congress has come up with ways around the law and ear marks have now worked their way to 5 billion and growing. Apparently the growth was too slow so they wanted to get rid of the ban. Fortunately congress was forced by public opinion to forget about this proposal but keep an eye open as they are always looking for ways to enhance their reelection chances.