Earmarking: Pork can bring home the bacon

Publication: El Paso Times

June 8, 2008

Earmarking, the process lawmakers use to add funding for "pet projects" to legislation, draws both fervent praise and severe condemnation.

The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

A recent project by the Associated Press, Associated Press Managing Editors association and more than two dozen newspapers, in partnership with the Sunlight Foundation and Taxpayers for Common Sense, examined earmarking, which is more politely known as "targeted spending projects." The series is in today's El Paso Times, Section A.

The process is amazingly simple: Lawmakers slip "pork" into other legislation having nothing to do with the projects and get them funded when the legislation is passed.

How simple is it? The AP project reports that more than 11,000 "earmarks," with a price tag of nearly $15 billion in all, were slipped into legislation telling the government where to spend taxpayers' money this year.

A key sentence in one AP story was this: "It's a pay-to-play sandbox where waste and abuse often obscure the good that earmarks can do."

What many people hear about are the abuses of earmarking, such as funding bridges to nowhere or earmarking with the goal of getting campaign contributions.

But earmarking can also be a positive thing. El Paso has benefited from earmarking by U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-El Paso. According to figures released by his office, here are a few examples for 2008:

# $3 million for defense systems research work at the University of Texas at
El Paso Center for Defense Systems Research.

# $536,000 for Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso/Lubbock for facilities and equipment needed to support influenza research.

# $1 million for the planning and design of a parking garage at William Beaumont Army Medical Center.

As with so many matters concerning the government, it all comes down to transparency. Reforms on both the House and Senate sides in 2007 added some rules, such as the House requiring any bill containing earmarks have an accompanying list of the earmarks and who requested it. One of the Senate rules prohibits senators from advocating for an earmark in which they might be financially involved.

Because earmarking involves taxpayer money, transparency is vital. Taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being used, who's using it and for what purpose.