Earmarked for controversy

Publication: http://www.poststar.com/articles/2008/05/18/news/local/13566768.txt

Maury Thompson
May 18, 2008

Two years ago, area Republican leaders urged voters to return U.S. Rep. John Sweeney to office so he could keep bringing home the bacon.

Sweeney, a four-term incumbent Republican from Clifton Park, lost his re-election bid to U.S. Rep. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-Greenport, in 2006.

Now, as Republicans seek to retake the seat in November, party leaders are rallying behind their new standard bearer's call to put the nation on a fat-free diet, at least for a while.

Alexander "Sandy" Treadwell, the endorsed Republican candidate for the party's nomination to challenge Gillibrand in November, has called for a one-year moratorium on so-called earmarks -- federal funding that members of Congress add directly to budget bills.

Earmarks often are referred to as pork.

Treadwell, one of three candidates seeking the Republican nomination, said his concern is not so much with local projects, but with the system as a whole.

"There are many worthy projects, like projects funding equipment in fire departments and for infrastructure and for hospitals, as an example, in this district and across the country," said Treadwell, a former state secretary of state from Lake Placid, in an interview earlier this year.

"But that doesn't excuse the amazing misuse of the system and the lack of transparency in the process. ... This is a national problem and a national abuse of the system," he said.

Another Republican candidate, John Wallace, a real estate broker and retired state trooper from Chatham, in Columbia County, has called for eliminating earmarks entirely.

A third candidate, Michael Rocque, a retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel from Clifton Park, has said the earmark issue is not a priority in his campaign.

Gillibrand has said she supports expanding congressional review of earmarks during the budget drafting process.

She also would support a reduction in the amount of funding for congressional earmarks, provided the amount of funding for presidential earmarks was reduced by the same percentage.

A change in tune

Some view as incongruous the position taken by Treadwell and local Republican leaders who support him.

"They're criticizing because they're not at the table doling out money," said Saratoga County Democratic Chairman Larry Bulman.

Area Republican leaders say their interest in earmark reform is sincere.

The current uncertainty over the economy makes this a good time to conserve on spending by taking a year off from earmarks and evaluating the overall process, said Warren County Republican Chairman Michael Grasso.

"We have always been of a position that as long as earmarks are a way of life, we should get our fair share," Grasso said. "Now if the entire nation gives up earmarks .., and lowers taxes, we're all for that."

Saratoga Republican Chairman John "Jasper" Nolan said he has come to the realization since 2006 that the earmark process sets up false expectations for organizations and local government officials that hope to receive funding and then are disappointed.

Washington County Republican Chairman Michael Bittel said he has long believed that earmarks should be eliminated from the federal budget.

Bittel said he made his position clear to Sweeney during the 2006 campaign, when he served as volunteer county campaign coordinator.

"He did run on that (issue)," Bittel said. "I wasn't comfortable with it then. I'm not comfortable with it now."

Two-party issue

Advocacy groups calling for change in the earmark process say the issue crosses party lines, with powerful legislators in both parties wishing to maintain the status quo.

Democrats weren't the only ones opposed to a one-year moratorium on earmarks, said Bill Allison, a senior fellow with the Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan advocacy organization.

"A lot of Republicans voted against it too," he said.

The problem with earmarks, Bittel said, is that the government winds up spending more money overall to fund the pet projects of powerful legislators.

The earmark, Bittel said, becomes a bartering tool legislators use to gain support for controversial legislation.

"I think there's got to be a better way to determining what a district -- what this country -- needs," he said.

A recent U.S. Department of Transportation study found that nearly 99 percent of earmarked transportation projects were not subjected to the department's review, according to an essay by Taxpayers for Common Sense, an advocacy organization.

In a perfect world, all projects would be funded through a competitive, objective review process, said A.J. Castelbuono, president of the New York chapter of Associated General Contractors of America.

"But unfortunately we don't live in a perfect world. We live in a political world," he said.

Highway contractors, he said, prefer to focus on the end result rather than the method of funding.

"We see it in terms of highways and bridges that need to be fixed," he said.

Pros and cons

U.S. Rep. Steve Israel, D-Huntington (Long Island), said earmarks are a way of bringing political balance to the funding process.

"The Bush administration budgeted an insignificant amount of money for environmental programs in my congressional district on Long Island, because they are out of touch," he said in an interview during a recent visit to Saratoga Springs.

"I, as a member of Congress, have an obligation to re-prioritize the administration's budget and bring more funds for environmental improvements."

Israel is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, which holds significant weight on earmark requests.

Tom Finnigan, of the group Citizens Against Government Waste, however, wrote in an essay that earmarks circumvent the authority of the administrative branch of government.

Others argue that federal grant programs are not comprehensive enough to meet every need.

In some instances, there are no competitive federal grant programs that apply to projects funded through earmarks, said two area health care executives.

David Kruczlnicki, president and chief executive officer of Glens Falls Hospital, released a list of eight earmarks, totaling $4.1 million, the hospital received between 2002 and 2007 for construction or renovation projects at the hospital or its health centers.

"The dollars that you're looking at on that sheet of paper certainly far exceed anything that we've been able to secure in grants in recent years," he said.

Earmarks, at times, provide seed money that can be used as matching funds for state or federal grants, or to encourage private contributions, said Dr. John Rugge, chief executive officer of Hudson Headwaters Health Network.

Rugge said he prefers a different food metaphor for earmark funding.

"This is the yeast," he said. "This is the starter money we need."

Projects that benefit from earmarks aren't necessarily wasteful, advocacy groups say. But the process, in which legislators can attach funding to budget bills with little or no discussion, is flawed, they say.

Gillibrand said she has voluntarily established policies to address concerns about the earmark process.

She publishes her daily schedule on her congressional office Web site, so people know who she is meeting with, and also publishes a list of earmarks she has requested.

Recently, she announced she will no longer exempt campaign contributions from executives with companies or organizations seeking earmarks.

Congress made significant reforms in the earmark process last year, said Israel.

"Every earmark has to be public. There is scrutiny on every one. You have to personally fill out a form justifying each earmark," he said. "And I think those reforms have gone a long way."

New way to earmark

Previously, there was no way to know who arranged an earmark unless the member of Congress disclosed it.

Advocacy groups say the measures have improved the process, but more changes need to occur.

"We see the names next to them, but they're still requesting a heck of a lot of them," said David Williams, vice president of policy for Citizens Against Government Waste.

There were 11,610 earmarks in the 2008 federal budget, down slightly from a high of 13,997 a few years earlier, he said.

Advocacy groups say it may be unrealistic to expect Congress would eliminate earmarks entirely, but further change to the process is possible.

At the very least, Congress should make it easier for legislators to remove earmarks other legislators attach to the budget, Williams said.

If earmarks are eliminated entirely, members of Congress might look for some other more secretive way to steer federal funding to pet projects, said Allison, of the Sunlight Foundation.

The key, he said, is to change the process so that more information about earmarks is available to the public.

Treadwell, the Republican congressional candidate, said the House, as a whole, should vote upon whether to insert earmarks into budget bills, rather than inserting earmarks at the committee level, and that there needs to be a longer time frame for House members to consider earmarks.

U.S. Rep. John McHugh, R-Watertown, said he and other House Republicans support a proposal to appoint an independent, citizen-led commission to evaluate the earmark process and recommend changes.

The proposal includes temporarily stopping earmarks for this year.

"I think the moratorium is the lesser important part of that proposal," McHugh said.

The earmarks process is "one of the most effective ways" to assist local projects, yet abuses of the system have left many people disenchanted, McHugh said.

"My worry is that if we don't clean up our act and put in a system that can withstand the smell test, people are going to demand that we do away with local projects all together," he said. "And I don't think that would be a positive outcome."