Congressional earmarks aren’t going to disappear soon, but welcome new legislation would shine a brighter light on them.
Earmarks are appropriations slipped into bills by individual members of Congress, and their propriety has long been debated. A furor over the practice erupted during the 2008 elections, and in response, House and Senate leaders started requiring members to post earmark requests on their Web sites — a step in the right direction.
(See a list of Rep. Rick Larsen’s 2010 requests at tiny.cc/i87fi)
Critics argue that earmarks are wasteful and can lead to corruption. Members of Congress from both parties defend the practice, saying their constituents should get a local return for their federal tax dollars, and argue that they know the needs of their states and districts better than Washington bureaucrats.
Waste, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. Larsen’s request of $1 million for Providence Medical Center Everett’s new emergency department, for example, may seem wasteful to anyone outside the hospital’s service area. But folks here may see it as a reasonable and worthy return on the taxes they pay.
Everyone, however, should be able to find out what members of Congress are seeking in earmarks, and find out easily. The bipartisan Earmark Transparency Act would make that possible, creating an easily searchable online database for all earmark requests.
It was introduced this week by two Democrats and two Republicans in the Senate, and one of each in the House. It would improve on current earmark disclosure rules, which don’t require requests to be posted in a standard way, leaving them hard to track.
Easy public access to earmark requests is the most effective way — short of eliminating earmarks entirely, which may be impossible politically — to ensure that such spending reflects the public interest. Truly preposterous requests will be more likely to get a meaningful public airing before they’re passed.
Earmarks represent a small portion of the federal budget — 0.004 percent this year, or $15.6 billion — but in a much larger way they reflect what many Americans think is wrong with Congress. The perception that members are beholden to contributors and other power brokers is widespread, and much of the reason Congress’ approval ratings have been at or near all-time lows in recent years.
Transparency and accountability are fundamental to building public trust. Passing the Earmark Transparency Act won’t restore trust in Congress by itself, but it sure wouldn’t hurt.
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