In my diet I tend to avoid pork at all times. I have nothing against those who enjoy it, it just is not for me. However pork in politics is a completely different animal. Recently with all the talk about appropriations bills, omnibus budgets and stimulus money, some people in the media have been making a big deal about something that is termed pork barrel spending. This generally references pet projects. This is basically spending on projects that are unique to the needs of a given municipality, city, county or state.
The thing that has me lost is why this is such a problem. On a recent taping of Meet the Press South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham found himself in a tough situation. He voted along party lines by voting against the appropriations bill claiming is was laden with pork. Graham however included in the bill $900k for work on a South Carolina convention center. Beyond the obvious hypocrisy of the situation, Graham should be proud to be bringing a bit of the money back to his home of South Carolina. People elect representatives to act on behalf of a constituents interest. I'm sure a convention center in South Carolina would do good things for the community. In the macro-economics level we can see that it will create work opportunities which will create workers. With workers you get more income that then becomes taxable increasing the national revenue for the government to create more opportunities and benefits for people struggling during these tough economic times.
There are many valuable and unique contributions that can be made by directing funds to specialized projects. As the stimulus package was being discussed in detail a main facet of the package was infrastructure improvements. This basically means rebuilding roads, schools, hospitals and making physical improvements to these types of places. These are all necessary to not only get people working again but to ensure that the infrastructure that is in place is working at its most optimal level. It would make no sense for the nation to try an judge on a macro level where and how to disperse of that money. That is why various congressional representatives try to include their districts needs at a time when stimulus money is being given out.
I understand that a study of mosquitoes in Utah may not impress the taxpayer in Florida. However when a Florida congressperson or senator brings huge subsidies for orange farmers the people of Florida are overwhelmed and as well they should be. When Iowa and Idaho congressional representatives direct federal funds to their districts for corn and potatoes respectively I have no problem with that. That is what they were elected to do. Their constituents want their voices heard at the national table. Pet projects show that the representatives are remembering their districts and bringing something back to the people there.
John McCain generated some deal of fame talking about earmarks and pork barrel spending. He made enough of a deal about it that others took on the fight against earmarks. However, in the essence of representative democracy earmarks is the representatives way of showing he or she intends to bring a slice of the federal pie back to his or her district. As we can also see these things also are much more useful than they are given credit for being. As long as the pet projects are pointed to a specific need of a district or community, I have no problem with it. Pass the Pork.
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The main problem with earmarks is that in order to 'earmark' something, you must fund it from either the original funding for the bill or from new funding you introduce with the earmark. If the former happens, you end up spending two billion dollars to pass a billion-dollar budget. If the latter happens, usually by adding taxes, your billion-dollar budget just became two billion dollars worth of taxes. I am exaggerating the percentages, to be sure, but the larger the "two billion" and the smaller the "one billion", the more "pork-laden" the bill is held to be.
Nobody doubts that senators and representatives are there to get a better deal for their home districts. But not everyone agrees where the funding *for* that deal should come from. In Massachusetts, my home state, the Big Dig project helped local citizens, but local contractors, politicians, and other even more local constituents conspired to bloat the price tag of the Big Dig up to $14.6 billion dollars or so. That's about four billion dollars for every mile of the Big Dig. Is that a reasonable price tag?
A final objection would be that pork tends to involve a fair bit of compromising on the bill's original intent in order to pass the bill as a whole. While not strictly financial in nature, the Three-Fifths Compromise was just such an article...
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