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Moratorium On Earmarks Working: Earmarks Down 70 Percent
American taxpayers should be happy the moratorium on earmarks is working — sort of.
The 2012 Congressional Pig Book, which has kept track of such things, announced for fiscal 2012, there were only 152 earmarks that it could identify compared with 9,129 in fiscal 2010. The cost has decreased from $16.5 billion to $3.3 billion.
The problem is that a few earmarks are now being handled differently to avoid the stigma. For example, the National Guard has a “Counter-Drug Program” costing $50 million in the Department of Defense Appropriations Act. In fiscal 2012, however, new categories of expenditures have been created such as “Congressionally Directed Spending,” escaping the moratorium on earmarks.
Some in Congress are getting restless, insisting that they know better than the executive branch what is best for the nation. U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) claims the inability to direct money to specific projects, “simply gives additional power to the president, and weakens the legislative branch.” The senator has always been a prodigious user of the earmark process.
In fiscal 2011, there were 141 earmarks to benefit Hawaii amounting to $321 million. Among them is $5.7 million for restoration of a historic seaplane hanger on Midway Island and $27.5 million in defense funds for the University of Hawaii. There is even earmarked funds to support the Hokulea Polynesian Voyaging Canoe Project (how Polynesians ever reached Hawaii). READ MORE HERE
