Cutting Off Your Earmark to Spite your Face

Although ostensibly playing to popular sentiment by banishing so-called "earmarks" from the stimulus and economic recovery package moving through Congress, President Barack Obama and Congressional Democratic Leadership have actually made things harder for themselves to have their mega-spending proposal enacted by the proposed deadline of Presidents' Day Recess. Voters - jaded at the lack of perceptible economic improvement to arise from the $700b TARP expenditure just months ago - foresee little tangible benefit to be gained from another $800b put on the collective tab. Despite the clear need for stimulating government action of some kind, the Democrats' proposal is wildly unpopular in the districts of most Republicans and swing Democrats because voters are wary of a federal spending panacea.

The stimulus is not unpopular because voters don't want the federal government to act. And it's not unpopular because voters don't grasp the severity of our economic situation.

The Democrats' proposal is unpopular in some quarters because voters don't believe it will actually be used to put people to work in their communities or spur tangible economic development.

For this reason, President Obama's opposition to the inclusion of federally directed spending projects - so called "earmarks" - makes it nearly impossible to close this credibility gap. Voters who are concerned with amorphous public spending in the hundreds of billions - especially given the stories of STD-prevention and sod-retention expenditures - will be less so if they see a direct link between the passage of the bill and the launch of brick and mortar projects in their communities.

Earmarked projects, counter-intuitive though it may seem, offer Americans the most transparency of any expenditure - if properly executed. This is why everybody knows about the "Bridge to Nowhere," but rare is the person who knows how the TARP funds were used.

If earmarks were allowed in the stimulus bill, voters who question the value of the Democrats' proposal would have the ability to see with their own eyes the projects being generated and the jobs being created. Rather than attempt to refurbish their strained credibility with the public by appropriating billions for distribution throughout a network of state and municipal bureaucracies, Congress and the President ought to take collective ownership of their constitutional responsibility to appropriate and directly spend federal dollars.

For example, President Obama could point to an open field and say, "this is where we will build a wind farm." Pelosi could point to a shipyard and say, "this is where we will revitalize our infrastructure." And the average Congressman or Senator, whether Democratic or Republican, could point to a dilapidated roadway and say, "this is where we will build a new highway."

Then voters might have more confidence in the federal government's use of their hard-earned tax dollars, and support swift enactment of the stimulus and economic recovery legislation.