By Keith Tipton

For about 10 years, earmarks -- line items slipped into large, discretionary Congressional appropriations bills -- have chiefly been absent from headlines. Why? In the mid-2000s, the practice reached a peak of 14,000 earmarks in one year, and some of them turned out to be a tiny bit criminal (kickbacks), while others just brought shame on Congress for being wasteful and laughable. Congress has had earmarks since the very first session in 1789 (a pier in Pennsylvania). It's not a new phenomenon, but it got out of control to the point of pushback from Congressional leaders about the practice.

Now, why are these like cockroaches and ants? You can do your best, but you can't completely get them out of your house. "Hard" earmarks giving explicit funding for various projects were mostly stopped for the last 10 years, but "soft" earmarks took up the slack. These are suggestions or hints that the government agencies spending the money should consider a specific program or project for funding, and they are often treated as hard earmarks. Who is responsible for soft earmarks is more challenging to determine than who is responsible for hard earmarks.

The reason earmarks are in the news is that they were obviously popular in the past, and some want them allowed again. It is one of the powers of being a lawmaker to be able to slip into a money-related bill a little something for the folks back home, whether it be a tax break, new construction, or perhaps a research project at the local university. Some House and Senate members with long careers became famous for this. Incumbents can use funded projects to say, "See what I did for our district?" In a close race, an earmarking candidate will likely point to the money in hopes of gaining votes. While not a bad thing if the projects aren't wasteful or unethical, the problem is that they nearly always get funded without oversight or outside review of the merits of the proposals.

The current atmosphere of allowing earmarks is to create more "bipartisan support" for bills, such as President Biden’s $2.3-trillion American Jobs Act proposal. The idea is that if earmarks are allowed, certain "no" votes might turn to "yes" votes if they can slip in something specific to get projects done back in home districts.

Donald Trump was interested in earmarks in 2018, probably because he wanted to overturn the Affordable Care Act and wished to entice reluctant Congress members to support his efforts. Senators and representatives designating money for their districts are not breaking the law, but the history of such is that it gets out of control and becomes embarrassing, or worse.  

For the leaders of the House and Senate to tell their caucus members that, "Hey, we'll let you spend taxpayer money if you vote for certain bills" is bad form. Biden was elected to run the government far differently than Trump. The leaders of the House and Senate must do the same. Declaring earmarks as "okay" for the sake of getting bills passed is a soul-killing move. Democrats have to take the high road as much as possible to change the culture of Washington, and they have to reject the endorsement of earmarks as a result.