An Earmark By Any Other Name
Our elected scumbags can talk "no more earmarks" and still shovel up the taxpayer cash to take home to their districts. Ron Nixon writes in The New York Times:
"We thought we'd gotten rid of earmarks," said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a budget watchdog group in Washington that is part of the coalition. "But it looks like Congress has just moved on to other methods that are less transparent than the old way, like creating these slush funds."The latest example, the groups say, is the recently passed budget for the Army Corps of Engineers. Budget documents show that Congress included 26 different funds -- totaling $507 million -- for the corps to spend on various construction, maintenance and other projects that were not included in President Obama's budget or the final spending bill.
The funds were financed by reducing money for projects included in the president's budget request and adding $375 million to the corps budget, documents show.
Congress also gave the corps criteria to use in selecting projects and instructed it to report within 45 days about how it intends to spend the money from the funds, according to the budget documents. On Monday, the corps will release the list of projects it plans to finance.
I wish somebody would give me money on those terms, but it generally only works that way if there's taxpayer money to toss around to some government or government-approved entity.
More:
Critics say the special funds in the corps budget are the latest example of members of Congress trying to circumvent the earmark ban to funnel money to their districts, in the form of corps engineering projects. In the absence of earmarks, lawmakers have tried pressing agencies for money or in some cases threatened to tie up Congress if projects are not financed.For example, in 2010, Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, threatened to block Obama administration appointments unless money was provided for a harbor dredging project in his home state.
Graham really is an oily character.
