Word of the Month for May 2025: Earmark

 

The other day, well, actually, it was TODAY, I was listening to another round of discussions about how evil DOGE is and how Elon Musk should be tossed in jail and how he's not doing anything and what a stupid BILLIONAIRE he is.

But I digress - kind of.

Lately, I've been hearing a lot about earmarks and I got to wondering whether earmarks and is just another form of governmental waste (of which DOGE will soon uncover).  

Before I get into this, let's define what an earmark (aka pork-barrel spending) is.  Essentially, an EARMARK is a provision in a spending bill that directs funds to a specific recipient or project, bypassing normal competitive allocation processes. Essentially, it's congressional funding for a particular local project.

While not technically illegal, earmarks can become a form of governmental waste.  How, you ask? 

Well, earmarks are a way for politicians to allocate funds to their districts, often for projects that primarily benefit their constituents, rather than serving broader public interests.  The earmarking process can create incentives for lawmakers, lobbyists, and potential recipients to engage in unscrupulous activities.

Earmarks are viewed as less than scrupulous because funding is not allocated based on merit or competition.  Rather, funding of these targeted projects are because someone is owed a favor (kinda like how Bob Dole won the presidential nomination in 1996).

So, why are earmarks viewed as shady?  Well, probably because they include some pretty shady projects, such as:

1. Former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens is tied to, by far, the most famous earmark—the Gravina Island Bridge or, as it's most commonly known, The Bridge to Nowhere. The project was given the nickname because it would have connected the mainland with Gravina Island—an island that was home to 50 residents at the time and the Ketchikan Airport. More than $220 million was set aside for the $398 million project in the National Appropriations Bill.
   
   
2. Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-Ca.) resigned and pleaded guilty to accepting kickbacks from military contractors for steering business their way, using his positions on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and the Intelligence Committee to insert earmarks for military spending. 
   
   
3. There's probably little chance that you've heard of or even been to Sparta, North Carolina, a town that had a population of about 18,000. That's why so many people found it strange that Congress set aside $500,000 in federal funding for the construction of a very unique museum in Sparta: the Sparta Teapot Museum of Craft and Design.  The museum closed its doors in January 2010.
   
   
4. The Big Dig in Boston ended up being the most expensive transportation earmark in history. The Big Dig took over 20 years to complete, costing taxpayers more than $14 billion dollars.
   
   
5. The $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 was supposed to provide earmark funding for shovel-ready projects across the country to get Americans back to work. Among those was a tunnel meant for turtles in Florida. The turtle-crossing project cost $3.4 million to construct a tunnel under Highway 27 north of Tallahassee, so wildlife can safely cross.
   
   
6. A little over $15,000 of earmarked stimulus funds were given to Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton to study how alcohol affects a mouse's motor function.
   
   
7. A $3.5 million earmark was secured by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D–Mich.) for The Parade Company, which runs Detroit's annual Thanksgiving Day parade.
   
   
8. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D–N.H.) secured a $2.5 million earmark that will help build a new kayaking facility in Franklin, New Hampshire as well as $2.7 million to help build a bike park in White Sulfur Springs, West Virginia, a town with a population of less than 2,300 people.
   
   
9. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R–S.C.) recently inserted at least eight earmarks into spending bills, forcing federal taxpayers to put up more than $33 million for things most will never use, like a new trail at Coastal Carolina University and an ROTC facility at the University of South Carolina.

I suspect, the problem is not so much that money is being spent as much as insuring that the money appropriated for this spending is actually accounted for and spent the way it is intended.  I mean, was all of the $14 BILLION dollars really spent directly on The Big Dig or was some it funneled into people's pockets?  Do you really need $33 million to build a trail in South Carolina?

It's because of all this presumed shadiness of pork and earmarks that people in congress have finally heard we the people and are pushing legislation through the system such as the Earmark Elimination Act—H.R. 5369.  Introduced in 2024 by ELEVEN (that's right, 11) cosponsors, the purpose of this bill is to prohibit the consideration in the House of Representatives of any legislation containing an earmark.  That's pretty bold and I hope it gets out of committee and onto the POTUS desk.

Yeah, that would be great. 

However, knowing how government works it's no wonder people are skeptical how how money is allocated.  Heck even the AI I used to research this refused to give me straight answers and kept coming back with the same suspect answers suggesting to me that "someone" is getting a kickback to keep information from coming forward.

Eh, I hope H.R. 5399 makes it to signature but I'm not going to hold my breath just yet.