In a previous posting, I referred to the Hawaiian hula dance and said the real story is told in the movement of the hands, not the hips. On Monday we witnessed the hip movement when Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reversed his position on earmarking funds for pet projects (aka pork barrel). As recently as last week he was staunchly defending earmarks but at his Monday meeting with newly elected senators, he flip flopped and joined House Speaker-to-be John Boehner who had already taken a sanctimonious stand against earmarking. (The day after the McConnell switch the Senate Republican caucus voted to end earmarks.)
The symbolism/hypocrisy of the GOP anti-earmarking is really glaring since the GOP lawmakers were at the forefront of pork barrel spending when they recently controlled Congress. But what is even worse is that their new-found religion is eye catching (hips) rather than real (hands). First, the $16 billion of earmarked funds represents less than one percent of the budget and could not carry much of the burden of the GOP/Tea Party commitment to significantly reduce federal spending. But that is the lesser part of the symbolic/hypocritical stand on earmarking.
Opposition to earmarking has little or nothing to do with spending cuts, as McConnell correctly argued in his pre-flip flop position. What earmarking does is simply break off a piece of the spending pie and give that piece to a favorite project in the home district or state of a representative or senator. A hypothetical example. A total of $50 million is provided for "agricultural research". Representative X wants and gets $500,000 for a project back home to probe the sex life of centipedes. He/she hasn't added that project and money to the cost of agricultural research, but only made sure his/her district got some of the money. In short, earmarking has little or nothing to do with the size of the pie, only how it is divided. The real (hands) test in the new Congress will come as specific appropriation bills are considered and whether the new congressional true believers can resist the back-home pressure to bring home some pork.
But that $16 billion of earmarked funds talked about so much is small change compared to the huge pot that sends big money back home. That's the $700+ billion defense budget, of which about $150 billion comes off the top for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Whenever a Secretary of Defense proposes a shutdown or cutback of a specific piece of military hardware or the closing of a military installation, congressional opposition immediately forms to oppose such cutbacks. If you are looking for bipartisanship, this is where you'll find it.
Just as a small and very incomplete example. Secretary of Defense Gates has taken a position against the excessive increases in cost that plague the production of the F-35 fighter aircraft. Right now the plan is to purchase nearly 2,500 of them at a cost of $382 billion over a 25 year period. European countries hope to buy an additional 3,000 planes, meaning even more money. Various parts of the plane are produced in the U.S. and abroad (abroad because of anticipated future sales and European contributions to development costs). In the U.S. there are major manufacturing and assembly factories in Texas, California, and Florida, as well as subcontractors scattered in many other states. The wide distribution of contracts and subcontracts in both populous and small states assures that there would be wide geographic, nonpartisan congressional opposition to any proposed major reductions in F-35 purchases. Thus, the defense budget has large sums of money that could be considered as politically protected earmarking. (Interestingly, Senator John McCain has targeted the F-35 as a program where cuts could be made. Although Arizona benefits from the F-35 program, his proposing some cuts may be a last vestige of his "maverick" reputation. Or, perhaps, like Gates, he is looking at controlling the growing costs rather than any reductions in the number of planes to be purchased.)
It is also important to note that Representative Howard McKeon, the incoming Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has already balked at cutting defense spending, citing the two ongoing wars as demonstrating our need to sustain the defense budget. (His California district includes Palmdale where a significant part of the F-35 production takes place.) There is no doubt that his stand is welcomed by the powerful defense interests. So far on the issue of cutting defense spending, we have seen some hand movements by Gates but the GOP/TP to this point hasn't even shown any hip action on one of the big pots of money where spending cuts are possible.
In sum, all that we have seen so far from the GOP/TP commitment to any specifics for spending cuts is symbolism. That symbolism is also part of the early congressional infighting over whether the Tea Party tail is going to wag the GOP establishment dog, or the other way around. On earmarks, the tail wagged the dog. The Boehner position and the McConnell reversal on earmarking appears to be no more than a symbolic effort to show the more conservative new members of both chambers that the establishment has listened to them and "gets it". Put another way, the establishment Republicans in Congress are now gyrating their hips to two audiences --the public and the Tea Party along with its fellow travelers.
We've been wondering how the GOP will be influenced by the TP. It seems both Democrats and Republicans have heard the same music from voters and are now hula-ing to it by now saying earmarks are bad. So far it just seems to be paying "hip service". Not all earmarks are bad. In fact some are good for the country as well as the particular state or region. As Senator Mr. Obama pushed for reform of earmarks to make them more transparent and make sure that the bill sponsors or their familites didn't benefit. Making sure earmarks go through the same open process as other spending bills do would go a long way to full reform. But putting on a hula show about earmarks is much easier and politically safer than actually tackling budget cuts and tax increases to actually reduce the deficit.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it looks like hip swinging may become bipartisan now that a cadre of Democrats wants to join in. There are indeed a lot of good projects, not including the bridge to nowhere. A lot of the problem comes from the media which always latches on to a few that seem off the wall and make a big thing of it. You're right about the transparency and there have been some which have put a lot of the benefits into the pockets of family and friends. It will be interesting to see how this turns out next year when appropriations bills are considered. Some will end up with earmarked money but a new legislative language will be created to defend it; so we will still get to see some hip action.
ReplyDeleteThe President's Bipartisan Deficit Commission and now Domenici and Rivlin have proposed comprehensive solutions to the Federal deficit problem. Do you think the new Congress actually will tackle the deficit with serious measures to reduce it?
ReplyDeleteAnd off the point, but still on the subject of Congress, what are the chances of the nuclear arms treaty with Russia winning approval in the lame duck session or even early in the next? And will McConnell continue to block voting on Federal judges after all the hue and cry against Democrats doing that in the Bush years? I've read that 23 Obama nominees are blocked despite 17 of them having been easily approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Courts are clogged and the remedy blocked by one Senator who bears a remarkable resemblance to a turtle.
Highly unlikely that anything significant will be done for the next two years. More rhetoric on spending cuts, etc., but nothing on the difficult issues of entitlements or perhaps even raising taxes of various kinds. Just hope that the Bush tax cut extensions are temporary so they have a deadline for getting back to the income tax issue. One thing they could do now, but they won't, is to convert the big earnings of hedge funds managers from the 15 percent capital gains rate to the higher rate regular income tax rate.
ReplyDeleteSorry to say but the nuclear treaty seems out for this session and maybe into the future. Kyl's saying that it should be put off is really bad news. Previously a Senator, forget which one, wanted more money for modernization of nuclear weapons as his tradeoff for not blocking consideration of the treaty. Obama added $4.5 billion, but it now looks like the Kyl position will continue the blockage. I also wouldn't look for a big batch of approvals on judgeships. With the Republicans sniffing further victory in 2012, they may choose to hold off so they can get more conservative judges then. At best, they may go forward with some.
It's really sickening how Republican leaders like McConnell and Kyl are willing to shaft the country to foster their own political gain. The START treaty normally has bipartisan support as did the previous version under George H. Bush, has had umpteen hearings, has won the endorsement of experts of both parties including Republican Senator Richard Lugar. And the President, as you say, has already acceded to demands for modernization. If the treaty is not approved, the United States will lose out in its relationship with Russia, standing in the world, and ability to verify Russian nuclear compliance. But such is the desire to prevent Obama from doing anything good for the country that its the good of the country that is sacrificed. Would that voters eventually see this disastrous Republican strategy for what it is--shafting the country by shafting Obama--and vote its perpetrators out of office.
ReplyDeleteSo do you think any of the Deficit Commissions recommendtons like cutting social security benefits and getting rid of the the mortgage interest rates among others will be implemented? It seems like the hands of congress will be tied for any serious impact. There has been a lot of talk about earmarks but it sounds liek it really is not going to help much with the deficit, that really big changes need to occur to make any real impact.
ReplyDeleteCosmo
ReplyDeleteGuess the sad part is that the problem lies with a relatively small number of Senators, like Kyl, who are in a position to have enough supporters to block the two-thirds vote needed. It must be particularly sad for Lugar who has a long history of working for nuclear weapons reduction and control. It reads like Kyl is using his area of legislative influence to support the overall McConnell strategy of preventing the re-election of Obama, regardless of the cost. There is, of course, the chance that Kyl will back off but he seems pretty determined to carry the issue over to the next Congress when getting a two-thirds vote will be even more difficult.
Jeffrey W
ReplyDeleteIt used to be said that social security was the third rail of politics and any efforts to make sweeping changes to reduce the cost would be politically fatal. Now it seems that there are many more third rails. A number of ideas like eliminating deductions on mortgage interest have been around for some time, along with ideas like raising the gasoline tax. So when you throw all of these plus some other stuff into a package, it brings out cries of anguish from both ends of the political spectrum, along with many in between. One group fights any reductions in the entitlement programs, another group opposes tax increases whether outright increases or indirectly through the tax code. The problem is that there is never a good time politically to really do anything significant. We're either coming up on a presidential or a midterm election year and getting re-elected seems to be the only really important thing.