(Via From Pine View Farm) That is my favorite saying from the Muppets’ Miss Piggy in response to someone who was silly enough to recite the tired cliche that she could not have her cake and eat it too. Apparently Blue Dog Democrats think this way too:
Overall, Blue Dogs submitted more than 2,500 individual earmarks totaling some $20 billion. That underscores the conflict between their eagerness to bring federal money home and the coalition’s criticism of the budget as laden with pork.
“It’s really hard to smack government’s wrists with the one hand while the other hand is looking for as much earmark cash as you can grab and bring home to your district,” said Steve Ellis, vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based public-interest group.
Go read the whole thing. The Blue Dogs that they talk to are not about to change their ways until the system gets some reform. Which is just fine, frankly, but if earmarks are a sign of undisciplined spending, and you are supposed to be asking for more discipline in spending — why indulge in this?
Earmarks add extremely little to the budget and that money would be spent anyway. But the real point (to me) about earmarks is that this is spending outside of the regular budget process and so happens without the kind of assessment that the rest of the budget has to go through. If a congressperson adds money to the budget to fix a navigational dam someplace, it is hard to argue that is frivolous spending. On the other hand, earmarks specifically for military spending are done specifically to bypass the budget process and possibly launch off more procurement boondoggles.
It is interesting that this story — focused on the Blue Dogs — is out right now. As these Blue Dogs are running around wearing their Responsibility Vests, they ought to be peppered with lots of questions about their earmarks.
Thanks and h/t to From Pine View Farm for this one!