Herewith, a reader’s comments on our most recent home page debate, “With its New Policy on Earmarks, Congress Goes Back to the Future,” posted Friday, May 7. To read the three columns on the subject, scroll down using the vertical track bar on the far right.

Loved the added lesson. (“With Its New Policy on Earmarks, Congress Goes Back to the Future,” by Charles Dervarics, with left column by Keith Tipton and right column by Stephen Macaulay, home page debate.)

I enjoyed and saw all three columns as logical and fair (which is unusual for me), but as a citizen who prefers a smaller federal government and theorizes that taxing and spending is better when it is managed closer to the people on the state and city or local levels. 

The practice of earmarking has never been popular with most voters and I applaud any attempt to make them transparent, even if I’m skeptical that politicians want to give up bringing home pork. I’m also sympathetic to smaller states by population, with lower incomes and far more square miles to manage; they do need additional resources to maintain, develop and expand their infrastructure, hence earmarking provides a way for them to trade votes for funding. On the other hand, it is not all that difficult for all but the naïve to see why politicians want more money and include earmarks for their constituents in every bill.

Personally, I see the only way to correct the abuse and waste associated with earmarks is to reduce the size of the federal government and amount of money it controls. Just as with our own budgets, when we have less, it will be spent on the most essential needs before our wants … and in the case of our federal government, a smaller take from citizens might be used more efficiently (I’ve yet to see government spend efficiently). As the federal government has grown, it has expanded and often supplanted personal responsibility and very efficient volunteer efforts (I grew up in a small town and miss how my mom’s generation ran local charities).

Political idealogues have forever debated “how big” the role of the federal government should be, but I personally prefer we move closer to James Madison and how he defined the concept of federalism – “The powers delegated … to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite” … a return to that would curtail wasteful earmarking. 

-- Rich Corbett, Cincinnati