Marking Ears

This morning, i sat in a half-full (optimism, eh?) auditorium to listen to Dr Jack Marburger, Science
Adviser to the President. He slammed the Congressional earmark process, which is easy enough to do that callers to Washington Journal can do it with some force. The Bush Administration has made it very clear that they don't approve of earmarks, and they remove all of them from their budget request every February. This is standard. It's NOT standard to reject them publicly while overrunning the spending limits you endorsed.

The big problem with picking on earmarks and those who rely on them to direct funding is that most Members of Congress are elected because of what they promise to bring to their district/state in terms of jobs or money. I'd like to meet the person who would fight against the appropriation of an extra $250,000 for their local zoo and say, "No thanks, let's tale that money and use it for something more important, even if that thing is 2500 miles away." Country's greatest need, this would be called.

Think about the way you made your decision on which candidate(s) to vote for last November. Many people choose based on party alone, but after that, people want to vote for someone who will deliver financially to their town. Your local university/junior college/community college may have an entire department or institute funded by an earmark. The park down the street from your house may have been created by an earmark. So before you blast earmarks or Members of Congress for appropriating them, take a look around and see what your town would be like without them.