McCain Promises End to Earmarks

In a new posting on his website, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain has promised voters that he will put an end to a time-honored congressional tradition: earmarks that send federal tax dollars back to home states and districts for pet projects of Senators and Representatives. As part of his economic plan should he become the successor to President George W. Bush, McCain says he will use the power of the presidential veto to stop pork-barrel spending and make public the sponsors of what he considers to be wasteful government spending.

Earmarks, as defined by the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB), are federal dollars allocated by Congress to be used for projects or programs that bypass "merit-based" or "competitive allocation" procedures, or those projects or programs that direct federal funds to a specific location or recipient. Earmarked funds are inserted into congressional appropriations bills and congressional authorization bills.

Citizens Against Government Waste, a private organization based in Washington, D.C. that bills itself as "America's #1 Taxpayer Watchdog," publishes annually a "Congressional Pig Book." The pig book is the organization's compilation of pork-barrel spending projects contained in the federal budget. The latest edition of the pig book, just recently released, says lawmakers from both major political parties sponsored more than 11,600 pet projects for 2008, at a cost of more than $17 billion to American taxpayers. Citizens Against Government Waste says the 2008 projects are spread among 12 appropriations bills for the fiscal year, meaning elected members of Congress are averaging about 1,000 earmarks per spending bill. There are 535 voting members of Congress. The House of Representatives contains 435 members, allocated to the states based on population density, while the Senate contains 100 members, two per state.

Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group that monitors the federal budget, published earmark numbers slightly lower than those from Citizens Against Government Waste. The numbers provided by Taxpayers for Common Sense showed 11,234 earmarks designated by the Congress, at a cost to American taxpayers of nearly $15 billion. However, Taxpayers notes that more than $3 billion dollars worth of earmarks was also designated by Congress, but no specific sponsor of the projects or programs was identified. Adding in the anonymous earmarks raised the total cost to taxpayers to more than $18 billion, which Taxpayers for Common Sense says is a reduction of more than 20 percent since 2005. Still, Taxpayers notes, the reduction in earmarks over the past three years is less than the 50 percent cut set as a goal by the House of Representatives.

While McCain has promised to cut earmarks from federal spending, he likely will face a tough battle with Congress if he is elected. Congressional members by and large view earmarks as necessary tools for funding important projects and programs for the citizens they were elected to represent.

Sources: McCain web site, OMB, CAGW, TCS