Congress has a constitutionally mandated oversight responsibility of the military under Article I, sections 8 and 9. There are several tools available to the Congress in the exercise of this oversight responsibility, including line item adjustments to the president’s budget, formal communications (hearings), informal communications, requirements imposed upon program execution, reporting mandates, reprogramming of funds and transfer restrictions, earmarks, reviews, and audits/investigations.
Here’s an example of a House bill showing several types of these controls on only one page of a long ( 65 page) document – click for a much easier to read hi-res version:
And here’s an example of a perfectly legal earmark – under current House rules – that nevertheless smells a bit:
The U.S. Navy wants a business owned by the family of Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski to hand over a piece of high-tech equipment bought with some of the $9.25 million in taxpayer funds Kanjorski steered to the company.
Except no one seems to know where to find the equipment
Maybe, as an engineer, I’m focusing too much on the scant details and don’t understand exactly what a “high pressure pump” is, but what in the wide wide world of sports does a pump have to do with nanotechnology?
My nose hairs are twitching. They smell a con.
– Max
Earmarks are a major problem. Both Republican and Democratic Congressmen/people/persons abuse them at taxpayers’ expense… but more so recently, Republicans.
Earmarks have unfortunately grown exponentially in recent years. And while it is not surprising that you should single out a Democrat’s questionable earmark, or Representative Murtha’s (whom I will be the first to admit uses earmarks extensively if not excessively) you should know that it has been mostly a Republican majority in Congress that ‘found’ earmarks, thanks to Newt, and catapulted them to extraordinary and abusive – and in one instance so far, criminal – levels.
Point in fact, it should be noted that the vehicle that Randy “Duke” Cunningham used to sell unwanted and inappropriate services to the DoD, steal taxpayer and defense money, and reap $2 million plus in bribes was by means of his appropriations earmarks. He is rightfully now in jail. Are others doing it? I suspect so. And they should have the same fate.
Earmarks have been mostly a Republican phenomena. Because of the past decade’s Republican leadership, their earmarks are the most suspect, and have grown exponentially. But the Democrats – and especially Murtha, who is one of the most prolific ‘earmarkers’ – are not blameless, either. (Had a Democratic, rather the a Repulican majority been in place for the past years, the Democrats may very well have been equally liable…… but I doubt it.
)
Regardless, write your representative. Earmarks, while they have some limited benefit, they need to be tightly regulated and totally exposed, to prevent the widespread abuse and corruption of recent years past.
Don’t read too much into the example, fliterman – it was only the most recent example in the news although I do confess a certain grim satisfaction that it was tied to Mr. Murtha. For reasons of my own.
And as you said, this is a bipartisan issue which certainly mushroomed under the late majority.
Cap’n,
Legislators, at any level of government, do not represent the people that elected them. Rather, they serve (in order of priority) Money, Self-Interest, Party. Everything else is simple verbage for the Unwashed Masses who serve them.
The issue of earmarks will only grow as the economy continues to roll along. So long as legislators have the keys to the Treasury, there will always be earmarks (or whatever they have been or will be called). To expect that self-same legislative body to impose rules upon itself to regulate/govern/abolish earmarks is an equally valid exercise in futility.
Senator Jim Demint of South Carolina weighs in: http://tinyurl.com/24c3re