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By Stephen M. Lilienthal
September 13, 2006
The outpouring of criticism about Federal Government overspending is beginning to register with elected officials. Fiscal watchdog organizations have spent a good part of the last year challenging the Washington establishment for ignoring the overspending of the last few years. Those watchdogs realize that the appropriations bills which Congress passes and the President signs come at a price, to be paid by our children, unless we start taking decisive action to stop overspending and also buy down America’s debt. Fortunately the action on several fronts is promising and very much needed. The Senate just passed one important bill and the House is expected this week to consider important reforms.
The Heritage Foundation, in an April 5, 2006 Web Memo on “The FY 2007 Budget Resolution: Long-Term Spending Challenges,” by Michelle Muccio and Alison Acosta Fraser, estimated the cost of Federal spending in FY 2007 to be $2.8 trillion. Federal spending has risen 45% over the last five years. Brian M. Riedl, federal budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, in a July 11, 2006 Web Memo on “Observations on Budget Estimates from the Mid-Session Review,” observes, “This year’s nine percent spending hike is the largest since 1990…Lawmakers should not assume they can continue increasing spending at this rate and be bailed out by equally fast revenue growth.” Entitlement reform is indeed crucial but Riedl argues lawmakers need to focus on “creating a budget process compatible with spending restraint.”
David M. Walker, Comptroller General of the United States, delivered a speech last month, “21st Century Accountability Challenges,” to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Governmental Accounting and Auditing Update Conference. Walker offered a number of recommendations to improve the processes under which the Federal Government spends money. Walker, an appointee of President William Jefferson Clinton, insists the Federal Government is on a “burning platform.” Extinguishing the flames requires revamping how our government handles our money.
Walker’s speech was wide-ranging and comprehensive. Two of his recommendations, reforming earmarks and instilling greater transparency in the awarding of Federal grants and contracts, are to be welcomed by Americans concerned with overspending.
You need not be a Beltway bandit to recognize the outlandishly large earmark known as the “Bridge to Nowhere.” News reports about the $223 million bridge linking residents of Ketchikan, Alaska to a sparsely populated island stirred up enough opposition to force its exclusion last year from the Transportation Appropriations Bill. Most earmarks lack the Bridge’s gargantuan price tag and are slipped stealthily into appropriations bills.
Representative Dan Lungren (R-CA), a former Member who returned to Congress after serving as Attorney General of California, explained to David Rogers of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL in a June 29th profile of the earmark critic, Representative Jeff Flake (R-AZ), how widespread approval of earmarking has become, even among Republicans in Washington and local officials back home who claim to be fiscal conservatives. “When I was here before people had the hope that maybe they would get something,” Lungren recalls. “Now they have the expectation and they say to you, ‘If you don’t give it to us, somebody else will get it.’”
Flake is waging a relentless crusade against earmarks, arguing it makes perfect sense that earmarking is so popular at the very same time Federal spending has been soaring. Flake’s efforts to remove earmarks from appropriations bills have been thwarted thus far in this session. He is the sponsor of H.R. 4964, the Earmark Transparency and Accountability Act of 2006. One aspect would require the identification of all earmarks 72 hours before an appropriations bill could be considered. Flake’s bill has bipartisan sponsors including Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN), Chairman of the Blue Dog Coalition, comprised of fiscally “conservative” Democrats. Flake may have achieved little success so far in preventing earmarks but his ceaseless criticism of the process has helped to bring the issue to the attention of the news media and the leadership of the House of Representatives.
House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) has pledged to challenge unrestrained earmarking. Boehner has proclaimed himself to be one who consistently has refrained from earmark requests. The House-passed version of the Lobbying Reform Bill now in conference would require that all House sponsors of earmarks be identified and would guard against last-minute earmarking. Members would be permitted to raise a point of order against earmarks, requiring up or down Floor votes. Boehner has indicated his interest in changing House rules to allow these reforms be applied to spending bills.
Boehner was quoted in a September 6 ROLL CALL story by Tory Newmyer, “Clock Ticks on Lobbying Reforms,” that it was unclear what would happen if the House passed earmark reform and the Senate did not follow suit. “It’s something we’re going to have to work through over the next week or so with the Senate, so we all have a clear understanding as to how this would work,” he commented. The major difficulty in forging agreement within Boehner’s own party ranks are the House appropriators, who want the coverage of his bill to apply equally to earmarks involving taxes and spending authorizations. (The Bridge to Nowhere would not have been barred because it was included through a manager’s amendment.)
Abuse of earmarking has turned a useful tool into a pernicious obstacle to those who want to restore order to the appropriations process. Congress has made funding bills equivalent to goodie bags distributed to children at Halloween. Flake has criticized the 1,700 earmarks included in the appropriations bill for Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, soon to be considered by the House. The Sunlight Foundation says the earmarks in that appropriations bill include $500,000 for a music education program at Lincoln Center in New York City, $380,000 for the South Valley Worksource Center in Palmdale, California “to increase business recruitment,” and $250,000 to “Best Buddies Virginia,” a program in McLean, Virginia providing mentoring for individuals with intellectual disabilities. Flake argues the earmarks in this bill should be considered under the earmark reform rules Boehner wants the House to adopt, regardless of their fate in the conference committee report on the Lobbying Reform bill.
Earmarking when not carried to the extreme can be beneficial. Free Congress Foundation Chairman and CEO Paul M. Weyrich, for example, considers earmarking to be a useful tool in funding projects vital to transportation and national defense. Ensuring a well thought-out national transportation system is important to the economic well-being and national security of the United States. However, there is a need for stronger transparency of earmarking to prevent abuses large and small. Boehner has asserted, “Shining more sunlight on earmarks and bringing more accountability will help fundamentally change the way Congress spends taxpayer dollars, reduce the number of earmarks, and promote greater fiscal responsibility."
Boehner’s office contends earmarking requests have declined by 37% this year. When earmarks are made they should truly be needed based on policy – not political – needs.
Walker advocates greater transparency when it comes to government contracts, arguing that the Congressional oversight process needs to be performed more vigorously and systematically. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK) certainly would concur. Coburn is Chairman of the Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management (FFM), the webpage of which insists, “When Congress fails to do its job overseeing current Federal spending, while at the same time, increasing that spending each year, citizens have been unconstitutionally deprived of appropriate checks and balances to which they are entitled as taxpayers.” Too many government agencies and programs have permitted waste, fraud and abuse to exist with little or no consequences. “Transparency is the foundation for all accountability,” asserts the FFM.
The Senate voted decisively last week to promote greater transparency and accountability within the Federal Government when it passed by unanimous consent S. 2590, the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act. The House is expected to vote on similar legislation very soon.
The Act would require the Office of Management and Budget to establish a website listing all organizations receiving Federal funds from 2007 onward. Breakdowns listing the agency allocating the funds, the dollar amount and the purpose of the grant or contract would be provided. The Act would require grants or contracts to be posted within 30 days after having been awarded.
Groups supporting Coburn-Obama cross the ideological spectrum, ranging from the avowedly liberal Americans for Democratic Action to the Wayne County [Michigan] Taxpayers Association. Conservative organizations supporting the Act include Coalitions for America, Concerned Women for America, Citizens Against Government Waste and Focus on the Family.
There is no specific House counterpart to the Coburn-Obama Bill. Representative Roy Blunt (R-MO) had introduced H.R. 5060, which promoted transparency with respect to Federal grants but not contracts. Leaders of the House and Senate were able to reach agreement on a House version that would cover both. Senator Obama expressed his pleasure that the House leadership came to agree “all federal spending should be accessible through this website.”
Earmark reform and the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act may appear to be modest measures. It is unclear if either one will be signed into law. The fact that the Congress this autumn has considered both indicates the success by fiscal conservatives to pressure Congress to
clamp down on spending.
This election year it is not enough to ask your Senator or Representative how he voted on earmark reform or your Senator about his vote on Coburn-Obama. You need to ask candidates for the United States House and the United States Senate what they intend to do next year to restrain spending. Measures such as a review of discretionary domestic Federal spending by a commission appointed by the President and leaders of the Congress; a similar commission to grapple with reforming entitlement programs including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid; and the sunsetting of federal programs can help to promote even greater fiscal accountability. It’s taken years to build up the national debt of $8 trillion-plus, and to establish practices, such as earmarking, as standard operating procedures. Congress intends to leave Washington very soon. Much more work to
Stephen M. Lilienthal is a policy analyst at the Free Congress Foundation.
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