Some critiques of a new video bashing earmarks

If you want to cut federal spending on local projects, go after grants-in-aid and tax policies.

I like a lot of the Kite and Key videos being created. They are clever, funny, and do a good job of making complex government topics cognizable in 10 minutes or fewer. You should check them out!

This new one on earmarks, however, made me grit my teeth a little. It’s clever, but the analyses is a little skewed and it little helps viewers understand why federal dollars flow to localities.

Now, don’t be mistaken in thinking that I love Washington, DC acting as a giant vacuum that sucks up tax dollars from across the country and then spews them back out. I’m not. I would much refer the federal government pare back its spending and scope of activities.

And to be sure, neither I nor anyone I know thinks it was OK for legislators to direct federal spending to projects pushed by lobbyists for corporations and private interests and then get vacation trips and campaign donations in return. Congress rightly abolished that practice more than 15 years ago.

That said, here are my beefs with the video.

1. The video’s operating assumption seems to be, Sure, there may be some good earmarks, but mostly this is an exercise in which a dopey, crooked politician says “I know a guy” who should get federal funds. I don’t think that is an accurate assumption. In all my years of studying earmarks I have yet to find an analysis that shows that most of them are bad. I have seen many of anecdotes, but nothing more substantial. In fact, a great many of the earmarks have been for local transportation projects—widening roads, fixing or replacing bridges, etc. Have we any reason to believe these projects are inherently dumb or unneeded? Yes, we can say the federal government should not involve itself in local matters, but that’s another argument entirely. President Andrew Jackson had thoughts on this topic.

2. Are some legislators crooked dunces? Sure. But others develop deep expertise in particular matters. Hence, I am not sure it is appropriate to simply assume legislators have no business deciding where federal funds go. In fact, their entire job (legislating) presuppose they have enough sense to write public policies and to direct the executive branch’s activities through statutory mandates. Just read Article I of the U.S. Constitution.

3. The video ignores the fact that presidents direct federal funds to increase their odds of winning in swing states (basically, they earmark). John Hudak, formerly of the Brookings Institution, wrote a whole book on this very topic.

4. “The Secret Behind Pork Barrel Spending” underplays the degree to which the executive branch forms its own cozy relationships with contractors and private interests that produce boondoggle spending. By no means should it be assumed that pure expertise and analyses directs executive agencies’ disbursement of federal funds. For example, just look at the Fat Leonard Scandal, which featured Navy officers, a sleazy foreign businessman, prostitutes, and a lot of wasted money.

   

5. The video fails to mention that the new form of earmarks that were created a few years ago (Community Project Funding) installed a whole regime of rules and transparency requirements. Gone are the days when private companies could get earmarks. Gone is the secrecy. And the Government Accountability Office, by the way, audits some of these projects, which creates fire alarm oversight.

6. Nor does the K&K’s video note that little Community Project Funds have been disbursed in the past few years. Why? Because Congress has not passed a lot of spending bills in recent years. Instead, it has relied upon continuing resolutions (CRS) to keep the government open. CR’s basically declare, “We can’t decide how to change spending policies, so let’s just keep doing what we’re doing.” That means requests for new local projects don’t get legislated into law.

7. More fundamentally, the video starts by framing federal spending as something that should only be done for national purposes. Yes, that is the way the Constitution set it up, but it isn’t earmarks that have led to hundreds of billions of federal dollars sluicing to states and localities. It’s grants-in-aid, which support local law enforcement, schools, infrastructure, etc. This sort of spending has been around since the early-1800s, but really escalated after the early 20th century (“Progressive Era”). Presently there are more than 2,100 grants-in-aid programs. If we hate the idea of federal dollars being spent on purely local matters, well, then we need tackle grants-in-aid. We also would need to tackle the tax code, which delivers lots of benefits to particular localities. Alaskans and west Virginians, for example, would not much benefit from a $40,000 per annum SALT deduction. New Yorkers and folks in high-cost parts of the country will.

Again, I like Kite and Key’s work and this particular video has some great moments. So please consider this post the work of a loving critic.