FatCratz

Making Rules is More Fun Than Obeying Them

Members of Congress are good at making rules. Obeying them, not so much.

One of the key earmark reforms was additional transparency. Members would be required to post links on their websites detailing the projects for which they had requested funding:

Under a rule adopted by the committee for the first time this year, members seeking earmarks were required to post an active link on their congressional websites describing the details of their desired pet projects. The committee gave members until April 4 ... to post online links containing the same earmark request information that members submitted to the committee. ...Members who did not comply with the new rule were supposed to have their earmark requests rejected out of hand.

In Congress-speak, "rejected out of hand" means "don't worry, the deadline was meaningless":

more than 70 members missed the April 4 deadline for having active Web links... Despite the numerous late entries, the Appropriations Committee is taking a lenient approach. “We will continue work with offices to bring them into compliance,” said Appropriations Committee spokeswoman Kirstin Brost.

Think Locally, Act Globally

Yesterday's Washington Post helpfully explored how one of Congress's true FatCratz, King O' Pork John Murtha, has steered $200 million in funding toward newly-renamed John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport over the course of the last decade. The airport has three commercial flights departing on weekdays.

Each of the six daily flights that the United Express local carrier makes to and from the airport is subsidized, costing taxpayers about $1.4 million, or $147 per passenger, last year. The subsidy is double the national average for the federal program designed to guarantee air service for 150 rural communities...

A reader recently commented that the single most redeeming aspect of earmarks is that they allow representatives to identify needs in their local communities, so government can "think globally and act locally."

Actually, earmarks are the exact opposite; they are the result of government thinking locally, and acting globally, in that the "global" purse is brought to bear on a local issue. This is precisely why they result in pet projects receiving outsized favor. True "local" action would require the citizens of Johnstown, or Pennsylvania, providing for the needs for their airport from their own purse; the limits thereby imposed would keep the airport in scale to local needs.