Memo to Obama: It’s Time to Take On Democrats Over Pork
Posted on March 4th, 2009 in Earmarks |
Now that we’ve had several days of fun blasting Boss Limbaugh for his idiotic statement that he hopes Obama fails, it’s time to turn our attention to some idiotic Democratic behavior. I’m sorry, but the earmarks in this omnibus bill are appalling, and Sen. McCain was correct to go ballistic over them. The Christian Science Monitor reports:
The bill, which will fund government for the balance of the 2009 fiscal year, includes 8,570 earmarks worth $7.7 billion, according to a new report by Taxpayers for Common Sense in Washington [...]
“I ask the senator from Hawaii [Sen. Daniel Inouye (D), who chairs the Appropriations Committee]: Why do we need to spend $2 million to promote astronomy in Hawaii when unemployment is going up and the stock market is tanking? Do we really need to continue this wasteful process?” McCain asked his colleague.
McCain, the longest-serving earmark opponent in the Senate, also noted: $1.7 million in the bill for pig odor research in Iowa; $6.6 million for termite research in New Orleans; $2.1 million for the Center for Grape Genetics in New York; $1.7 million for a honeybee factory in Weslaco, Texas; $143,000 for an online encyclopedia in Nevada; $150,000 for a rodeo museum in South Dakota; $238,000 for the Alaska PTA, and $333,000 for a school sidewalk in Franklin, Texas.
President Obama is showing a disturbing tolerance for the pork in this bill, and it seems that he will sign it because he doesn’t want to take on Congressional Democrats. The official explanation offered by Rahm Emmanuel and others on the Sunday talk shows is that the omnibus bill is “old business”, and that supposedly excuses the President from responsibility. That’s a cop-out. What is really going on here? I think the President doesn’t want to pick a fight with his own party. Exhibit A is Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who seems to be saying that Obama may not like these earmarks, but he’s just gonna have to accept them, because Congress runs this show. In his own words:
Asked about White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ statement Monday that the Obama administration was formulating guidelines for earmark reform, Hoyer said flatly, “I don’t think the White House has the ability to tell us what to do.”
He paused deliberately and quipped to reporters in the room, “I hope you all got that down.”
It seems that the President tried to convince Congress not to put these earmarks in, but they defied him:
CNN reported Monday that, according to Democratic sources at a White House meeting last week, Obama urged Democratic leaders to “limit” future earmarks and, in what one official described as a “tense” exchange, the leaders told the president they’ll do what they can to continue reform, but that earmarking projects for districts and states is a prerogative of Congress.
Hoyer, who attended the White House meeting, vigorously defended earmark requests Tuesday, calling them “the congressional initiative process.”
“I philosophically believe it would be an undermining of the Article One responsibilities given to the Congress of the United States if it were to abandon its right to add items that it believes are priorities for our country and for the communities we represent as members of Congress,” Hoyer said.
Uh, no. The President is a co-equal branch of government the last time I checked the Constitution. Congress does have a right to add whatever it wants into its bills, but President Obama doesn’t have to sign them. In fact, he should veto this bill unless the earmarks are taken out.
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) has an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal today explaining how damaging it could be to President Obama if he signs this bill:
The omnibus debate is not merely a battle over last year’s unfinished business, but the first indication of how we will shape our fiscal future. Spending should be held in check before taxes are raised, even on the wealthy. Most people are willing to do their duty by paying taxes, but they want to know that their money is going toward important priorities and won’t be wasted.
Last week I was pleased to attend the president’s White House Fiscal Responsibility Summit. It’s about time we had a leader committed to addressing the deficit, and Mr. Obama deserves great credit for doing so. But what ultimately matters are not meetings or words, but actions. Those who vote for the omnibus this week — after standing with the president and pledging to slice our deficit in half last week — jeopardize their credibility.
This is a perfect opportunity for Obama to tell the Congressional Dems that they are not special just because they have a “D” beside their names. Obama needs to stand up to Republicans and Democrats who are still practicing the old politics. Obviously, the President has to pick his battles with his own party wisely, but by signing the omnibus bill, he will cause serious damage to his credibility on spending. On this bill, Obama needs to remember the theme of his inaugural address: a new era of responsibility. This is a battle worth fighting.
14 Responses
I agree completely! This is really hurting Obama’s credibility. I have no idea why he says he’ll sign it. I know that he doesn’t want a fight over the Omnibus bill that will take a lot of time, that he wants Congress to start working on other more pressing matters. But he can’t just ignore this “in-your-face” attitude on the part of Congress. Evan Bayh is right.
The excuse of too short a timeframe is just that, an excuse. The President had no problem ramming the so-called stimulus down the throats of Americans in record time.
He doesn’t have the fortitude to take on the democrats, yet he is talking about economic responbility. Mr. President, the American people can’t hear what you are saying because they are looking at what you are doing. It’s time to man up and live up to your promises. We are still waiting for change we can believe in. So far, it is just the same of Washington with a different fact.
I completely agree! We can’t expect change unless we actually change. Same ole, same ole. David Walker, on Night Line last night was right when he said the President is trying to do too much. He needs to concentrate on this credit crisis and veto these Omnibus spending bills. I agree with Wendy, it’s time to man up and live up to your promises — whatever that takes including ticking off some people who are Democrats.
Obama keeps making exceptions to his promises because it is “last year’s issues,”, or “inherited,” or “we need to get the stimulus in place,”….that is a weak person speaking. Where did the independent minded tough D that we saw before go? “Porkbama” is a tempting label. I hope he comes through with the guts we need!!!! Now!! Not when he runs out of weak excuses!!!
I agree with your point of view 100%. For the President to make the excuse that this spending bill is ‘old business’ as a justification for his willingness to sign it is just another example of inside-the-beltway politics. It reminds of the current administration’s sorry excuse when they hired a previous Defense Department’s lobbyist for an important position, in what department someone may ask; the Defense Department itself. Go figure!!
As a Western New York resident, I fully support the Grape Genetics Research Center =)
Well, I’m sure there are some farmers in Iowa happy about the pig odor research…I was about to ask, but I don’t think I want to know what that is.
Man, I hate to just be part of the chorus here, but I couldn’t agree more. Like they say, 7.7 billion here, 7.7 billion there, pretty soon etc. etc…
Great to see liberals distinguishing themselves from conservatives by being willing to criticize their own.
Good work, Jared.
Good to see you here Winston. Yes, sometimes we all agree on this blog, and that’s cool. I’m still trying to find my own version of Tom van Dyke
LOOOL
Oh, man. Be careful what you wish for…
I’m as against *wasteful spending* as the next guy, but in these debates it would be nice if someone could actually DEFINE such spending, other than to arrogantly claim, as did Felix Frankurter about obscenity, that they “know it when they see it”.
In my mind, any spending which is likely to have a decent multiplier effect, increase the velocity of money in the economy or contribute to the commonweal is not accurately characterized as *pork* and certainly not bad in a stimulus bill. Now, I realize that this post in particular concerned an omnibus spending bill and not THE stimulus bill, but considering the circumstances, we could use stimulus anywhere we can get it.
There’s also the further question of whether and to what extent any spending is just a ‘pet’ project of the Senator or Representative in question or actually contributes to the commonweal. To choose but one example that the earmark jihadists are getting some mileage out of, let’s talk about honeybees. Did you know that:
“More than one-third of the diet of the average American is composed of foods pollinated by honey bees. A recent study by Cornell University determined the annual economic value of honey bee pollination to be $14.7 billion. In Mississippi, the annual pollination value is estimated to be over $250 million.”
(cite: http://www.mdac.state.ms.us/n_library/departments/bpi/bpi_honey_news.html)
and that the honeybee population is in great decline? Me, I like food, and it’s my opinion that domestically produced food is a desirable public good.
Further, see here:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hiltzik5-2009feb05,0,4684030.column
Again, I’m not defending all of the spending in this or any other bill that Congress passes. All I’m asking for is 1) a reasonable standard for distinguishing pork from worthwhile spending (implicitly, a firm definition of *pork*) and 2) that anyone who criticizes a specific spending proposal in a bill have at least a modicum of knowledge about what the actual purpose of the spending and its potential value is. Argument by generation of visceral reaction, via the media, is not the best way to have a rational debate about priorities or the necessity or efficacy of various proposals (see e.g. Iraq War)
All good points LC. In fact, I was talking with someone from Iowa yesterday who pointed out to me that pig odor research does serve a valuable economic purpose. Businesses and families will flee towns that are close to pig farms because of the odors, and that can hurt the local economy. It sounds funny, but it’s apparently the reason behind this kind of spending.
Going directly to your point, though, I’m not arguing that earmarks (aka “pork“) are always or even usually wasteful spending. I’m sure that when politicians “bring home the bacon”, constituents are often happy in large part because they find the projects funded by the bacon valuable. So, let’s suppose that every earmark in this omnibus bill supports a worthwhile project. My issue with earmarks is that the process of putting these line-items in large spending packages is not transparent and it gives the appearance of wasteful spending. The problem is that the public cannot easily be assured that their tax dollars are being spent wisely because there is so little oversight and scrutiny of this spending. The only time we hear about the earmarks is when one one of the anti-pork crusaders like McCain starts railing against them, as McCain did on Twitter. By the way, some of the projects that McCain cites makes it very hard to imagine that none of the earmarks in this bill are wasteful. $1.2 million for Rolls Royce? $7.1 million for Hawaiian sea turtles? These just sound ridiculous, and so they hurt public trust that our representatives are spending our tax dollars wisely. Now, maybe if we heard the whole story, we’d conclude that there is a justification for this spending. But the earmarks process cuts the debate off, so we can’t ever really know whether we’re wasting our money or not. There are a lot of other problems with earmarks that you can read about at the Sunlight Foundation. A big problem that I won’t dwell on much here is that earmarks encourage corruption by allowing special interests to pressure legislators into bringing them bacon in exchange for campaign contributions.
So my complaint is more about the earmark process than any particular piece of pork. But even the administration seems to agree with me, since Obama has committed to getting rid of earmarks. That’s why the administration was so proud about the stimulus bill not containing any earmarks. And today on the Sunday morning talk shows, I saw Peter Orszag from OMB saying that the process w/ the ombnibus bill is flawed, but that Obama wouldn’t oppose it because it’s last year’s business. Next year will be different, Orszag said. Again, it just seems that Obama is not willing to confront the Dems on this, because their earmarks constitute 60 percent of the total earmarks. Another good piece on this is in tomorrow’s Christian Science Monitor.
But I’m not excusing Republicans from this either. They are being incredibly hypocritical for going after Obama when 40% of the pork comes from their side. But they do have a point: if you’re going to say, as Obama did during the campaign, “We need earmark reform, and when I’m president, I will go line by line to make sure we’re not spending money unwisely,” then you’d better follow through or you’re going to lose credibility. I just think Obama is making a mistake here that may hurt him. The administration may be calculating that the public doesn’t care about these earmarks and that the cost of angering Congress is too high. But considering how much the federal government is spending right now, I question that line of reasoning.
I really can’t disagree with anything you say, Jared. It’s the process that has become so polluted. The secrecy that it’s cloaked in makes it very hard to debate any of these things on their merits, a shortcoming of the process that causes us all to lose.
It’s almost worse for the psychological effect, since in percentage terms all the earmarks put together amount to something like 1/2% of all federal spending. The problem is that the process is so scummy, as you note, that it breeds a presumption of bad faith about the government. Like they view our tax dollars as a way to maintain their favored sinecure in Congress.
And I agree that Obama has a unique power right now to do something about it, both because 1) he’s the president, and not beholden to any one Congressional district like Reps or state like Sens and 2) because he has a tremendous amount of political capital at the moment, to judge by the polls.
P.S. My favorite one of all time was the one for the Cowgirl Hall of Fame Museum
Enough with the Pork and earmark debates! This $$$ should be looked at as “targeted stimulus” dollars - right? If the President and his team is going to go over it “line for line” while making their process transparent, as they have promised, then they should be able to tell us of the possible socio economic impact of the new Art Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico or the new Recording studio North Philadelphia or the nw bridge in Wyoming. It should b clear what is stealing or not … Get on the ground and do the research!
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