Republicans Stand Firm on Earmarks

Watermark said:
Is that just an assumption or are you just making a baseless claim? Certainly removing legislative discretion over specific spending would greatly increase executive power.



Once and for all, earmarks are not some sort of system whereby people can pass secret legislation. The are legislative direction on spending.

The definition you have heard of them before is not their true definition. Although certainly they would be useful to pork kings, since anything that a pork king could pass would probably be through an earmark, since "spend the money from the legislative bill on this bridge to nowhere" is an earmark, but there are much better ways to eliminate pork than eliminating legislative discretion on specific spending.

"Spend this money in the budget on an interstate between this new big city the president doesn't like because it's too liberal and this other city" would also be an earmark.
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If you look back on the history of government prior to, say, Wilson (being my favorite bogeyman), politicians and statesmen, etc. looked down on things such as earmarks as being unethical and immoral.

Come the New Deal, when Congress was notoriously corrupt, and earmarks became business as usual. It is wrong for any portion of any bill to not be related to the title, or at least to be significant components of portions which are.
 
Threedee said:
That's usually how they are applied.
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An earmark has nothing to do with the relevancy of the earmark to the bill. The bridge to nowhere was related perfectly well to the transportation bill it was put into, while the rider that was placed into a boring bill on municipal waste that no one read that made English the official language of South Carolina wasn't an earmark.
 
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Threedee said:
Well, earmarks have become rampant since the rise of the imperial presidency, so that is a really pointless argument. Both earmarks and executive encroachment are symptoms of a breaking system, and are not directly related in the way you put it.
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Of course, it is related. Removing congressional power on earmarks clearly leaves full discretion on how many is spent in the hands of the executive.
 
Watermark said:
Earmarks aren't secret legislation. Earmarks are the legislature giving special directions to the executive on how to spend cash. Eliminating earmarks would vastly increase executive power.
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Earmarks as a check on executive power. How stupid. The greater impact is probably on spending.
 
Congress is supposed to appropriate funding to US Departments that know what they are doing. Its retarded to consider that the accountants at Interior don't know more about funding the Interior than some Congressman. Its not a check, its stupidity.
 
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