Omnibus Earmarks

On top of the banks bailout, the auto industry bailout, the so-called stimulus package, we still haven't gotten a budget for the rest of this year. The Democrats only passed half of a budget for the rest of 2009 because they figured that it would be better to wait until Obama became president so they wouldn't have to worry about a Bush veto. So that is what is moving through the Congress now. We're not even talking about the regular 2009-2010 budget which Obama will introduce today.

So this omnibus bill that they're sending to Obama this week is an opportunity for us to see how much Obama means all his fine words on fiscal controls and avoiding earmarks. The result - not so impressive. Listen to what is in this omnibus bill.

Among the recipients of federal largesse is the Polynesian Voyaging Society of Honolulu, which got a $238,000 "earmark" in the bill.

The group organizes sea voyages in ancient-style sailing canoes like the ones that first brought settlers to Hawaii.

The sailing club has a powerful wind at its back in the person of Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The bill also has a whopping 8 percent increase over last year for the numerous federal agencies it funds.

New York got its share of earmarks, among them $475,000 to "improve and expand" the Italian American Museum in Little Italy.

The project was pushed by New York Reps. Gary Ackerman and Jerrold Nadler. The latter touted it, among other earmarks, on his Web site.

Nadler also announced $4.5 million for new park development in Manhattan....

Earmarks totaled at least $3.8 billion - a figure used by the House Appropriations Committee.

But the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense calculates that there are an astonishing 8,570 earmarks at a cost of $7.7 billion....

The House packaged the bill from several spending measures held over from last year. It needs to pass the Senate and be signed into law by President Obama.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, whom Obama vanquished in November, is calling on the president to veto it.

But Democratic leaders say the spending spree was a bipartisan affair, with up to 40 percent of the earmarks coming from Republicans.

Obama has criticized earmarks and insisted they be kept out of stimulus legislation - a suggestion that drew laughs from Republicans at the president's address to Congress Tuesday night.

Another earmark, by Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.) provides $200,000 for a "tattoo-removal violence-outreach program" in Los Angeles.

The funds would buy a tattoo-removal machine to help gang members erase signs of their past.

I guess this is all the leftover earmarks that they didn't crowd into the stimulus bill.

President Obama could have brought home his message from Monday about the importance of fiscal restraint by getting the word out that he'd veto this bill, but apparently his concerns for restraint don't extend to actually doing something about it.

The Democrats defend these programs by saying that the Republicans asked for a lot of earmarks too. Well, shame on them. Call both parties out. That would give Obama an opportunity to be bipartisan in his demands for restraint. But instead he remains passive as the appropriators work on driving policy.

What is even lamer is the defense that the continually lame Harry Reid puts out for all the earmarks. In his mind, there is something noble about letting the people's elected representatives decide how to spend money rather than letting faceless bureaucrats who might not have the same affinity for tattoo removal and Polynesian canoeists that our congressmen do.

"Since we've been a country, we have had the obligation, as a Congress, to help direct spending. We cannot let spending be done by a bunch of nameless, faceless bureaucrats buried in this town someplace, to take care the needs of the state of Nevada, Washington and New York."

While his defense of pork as an expression of democracy is good populism, but bad policy. When those so-called faceless bureaucrats decide how to spend the money, they have the opportunity to look at all the proposals for spending in a particular area and prioritize. While individual programs might sound nice, there are probably loads of such proposals and those faceless bureaucrats don't have to kowtow to the powerful senator on the Appropriations Committee who wants to get money for a pet project. What we don't hear about is the program that doesn't get funded because we are using federal funds to pay for tattoo removal. And it might be a small percentage of the whole spending bill, but then don't try to turn around and hold fiscal stimulus summits and applaud lines in the President's speech about fiscal restraint as if any of these guys mean what they are talking about.