A year ago, responding to an outrageous piece by People for the American Way (as they pretentiously and falsely style themselves), I wrote in this space that a little "pork" in federal appropriations wasn't such a bad thing (see here). These Congressionally-earmarked projects, I argued,
may or may not "succeed" but their prospects cannot be dimmer than those of Title I and other "formula" programs that . . . shovel out billions every year with no discernible impact on student achievement. At least the "pork" is going to places that want it for activities that they're keen to undertake, rather than being sent unbidden from Washington according to arcane formulae and intricate regulations.
I'm not recanting. But respectful of the principle that all things are best done in moderation, let me suggest that the Congressional pork shoppe has grown immoderately large and the Administration's response is strangely incomplete.
One can define "pork" as federal dollars directed by Congress to specific places, organizations, or institutions in ways that effectively block others from accessing those funds. The executive branch has its own version: "discretionary" grants that an agency awards to one recipient rather than another without conducting an open, merit-based competition.
Whether such a Treasury check arrives thanks to Congress or to the executive, it can generally be distinguished from "formula" programs (which distribute dollars based on objective factors such as population, poverty, age, etc.) and from "competitive grants" for which a wide array of institutions (e.g. universities, cities, hospitals, bio-medical researchers, aircraft manufacturers) can apply, with winners chosen according to more or less objective criteria.
Much can be said about the tilting of formulas to benefit particular places or outfits, and about the subjectivity and favoritism that creep into the "competitive" awards process. I don't contend that either is pure, only that they wear the garb of openness and uniform treatment rather than exclusiveness and pre-selection.
Back to pork. It comes in three forms.
First, as noted, federal agencies sometimes have "discretionary" dollars to award to programs or projects that they want to launch or sustain.
Second is the now-ubiquitous Congressional "earmark," about which more later.
Third is the authorized-and-appropriated "program" that's so narrowly crafted that its funds can go only to a handful of places or entities. Consider the "Alaska Native Education Equity" program ($34 million in FY05) and the "Education for Native Hawaiians" program (also $34 million).
Under this third heading come many of the 150-odd programs that President Bush has proposed for elimination in FY06, of which 48 are housed at the Education Department. Candidates for slaughter include the "Underground Railroad Program" ($2.2 million in 2005), which benefits a single museum in Cincinnati and the semi-notorious "Exchanges With Historic Whaling and Trading Partners" program ($8.5 million), for which only a handful of institutions in Alaska, Hawaii, and Massachusetts are eligible (See here). Others are larger, broader-based programs such as vocational/technical education ($1.3 billion) and "Safe and Drug-free Schools" ($437 million). (A list of Education Department programs targeted for elimination can be found here.)
Nobody really expects all, or even most, of these programs to bite the dust even though, as Secretary Spellings has noted, many of them are tiny and few can display evidence of effectiveness. Still, they have constituencies, lobbyists, and Congressional patrons-and that's usually all they need to stay alive and funded.
Now, back to the "earmarks." The President's budget never contains money for Congressional "earmarks." These get added during the appropriations process and are the best known form of pork. And they've been steadily growing, in FY05 to their highest level ever. At the Education Department alone, there are 1,182 of them, totaling $426 million.
True, it's a small fraction of the agency's total budget. True, some projects have merit. True, some have been around nearly forever. But this is no way to run a government. I have three major beefs, so to speak, with the pork.
First, they are the consequence of Washington's infatuation with lobbyists-the ever-growing army of highly paid influence peddlers who haunt the halls of Congress, who sponsor campaign fund raisers, and who recruit clients, promising them (along with much else) that "I can get you an earmark." It's squalid, it rewards the well-connected, and for the most part it wastes the taxpayer's money. As the list of earmarks lengthens, so does the size and allure of the lobbying industry.
Second, they overburden the executive branch while drying up its own "discretionary" dollars, thus discouraging able people from wanting to serve in government because there's so little they can accomplish there aside from managing earmarks-and, perhaps, prepping to become lobbyists themselves. This year's earmarks for the "Fund for Innovation in Education" total more than the entire appropriation for that program-Congress, too, is mathematically handicapped-and leave Secretary Spellings with virtually no say over any of those dollars. (She may have a couple million left for "new projects.") Yet while the White House is keen to explain why dozens of authorized programs should be scrapped, it's largely silent about earmarks. I know not why.
Third, finally, and most importantly, the runaway earmarking process teaches a wretched civics lesson at the very time we say we're concerned about forging better citizens. It reveals government itself to be a hypocrite, Constitutional processes free to be circumvented, and Washington to be a place where greed and cynicism reign and influence and connections matter more than merit. Is that what we want our kids to learn?
