New Database Names Those Who Made Earmarks Possible

Last week, in a development that went almost unnoticed amid the national furor over health care reform, two of Washington's nonpartisan watchdog organizations released a comprehensive database of how Congress spent $19.9 billion on 11,286 earmarked projects in fiscal year 2009.

You remember "earmarks," those special allocations that are approved outside of the usual appropriations process. The issue was all the rage during the 2006 and 2008 election cycles, thanks to Alaska's infamous "Bridge to Nowhere." Congress vowed to reform itself; a few members, including Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., pledged not to earmark anything.

The "reforms" take the form of removing secrecy from the process, not in stopping the process altogether. In fact, according to a report by Taxpayers for Common Sense and the Center for Responsive Politics, the $19.9 billion spent on 11,286 earmarked projects in the 2009 budget bills actually exceed the $18.3 billion for 11,780 projects in the FY 2008 budget bills.

The good news, such as it is, is that now it is possible to trace each earmark back to the individual member of Congress (or group of members) who requested it. That should help the accountability process, particularly at election time.

Relative to a budget of $3 trillion a year, $19.9 billion in earmarks is chump change: less than two-thirds of 1 percent of all spending. Plus, a case (perhaps not a persuasive case, but a case nonetheless) could be made that every earmark in the budget represents an important public need.

But in the real world, $19.9 billion is not chump change. It represents $66 for every man, woman and child in the United States, some of whom probably would rather keep the money than see it spent — to pick one project at random — on $392,000 worth of improvements at the Sauget Business Park. Rep. Jerry F. Costello, D-Belleville, sponsored that one.

The problem with earmarks is one of process: They can slide through without scrutiny. They are treated as political backscratching. They suck up money that might better be spent on other national priorities, or not at all.

The database released last week attempts to correlate lobbying and campaign contributions to earmarks. You can read, for example, that DRS Technologies of West Plains, Mo., spent $320,000 lobbying Congress in 2008.

And then you can note that Sen. Christopher S. "Kit" Bond, R-Mo., signed off on a $1 million earmark for the Chemical Biological Protective Shelters that the firm makes.

The correlation is imprecise. Many of the earmarks go to city and county governments and public universities, whose lobbying activities are far easier to trace than those of private entities. There are many ways to disguise the source of campaign contributions. But disclosure rules should make it more difficult for earmarks to be passed out as campaign favors. In fact, the new rules already have slowed the growth in the number of earmarks being requested.

In 2009, Democrats got 54 percent of the earmarks and Republicans got 46 percent. More than $5.2 billion had bipartisan support. Mississippi Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee, led Congress with more than $1.2 billion in earmarks in 2009, including more than $150 million for which he was the sole sponsor.

Mr. Bond, also a Senate appropriator, led the bi-state delegation with $320 million in earmarks; he was the sole sponsor for $120 million of those. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate deputy majority leader, signed off on $225.4 million and was sole sponsor of $62.7 million.

During all of the FY 2008 budget process and most of FY 2009, the junior senator from Illinois was Barack Obama. He was a relative piker at the process in 2008, signing onto only 58 and was the sole sponsor of only eight.

But the 2009 budget, a product of both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, included at least $17.8 billion in unspecified earmark requests. Those were requests only; Congress has final approval.

Earmarks aren't going away, not as long as members of Congress have to run for re-election. Even stalwart conservatives like Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, love earmarks — he signed off on $80.7 million of them in 2009. But Congress should be willing to defend them in the light of day. The new database is a good place for that to begin.

The chart below contains earmark data for Missouri and Illinois senators, and the seven House members who represent the bi-state area. The first line under each name is FY 2008 data; the second contains data for 2009. The "total earmarks" figure includes all requests the senator or House member signed off on; the "solo" figure represents those for which the individual was the sole sponsor.

The "rank" column shows where each senator or representative stood each year as an earmarker among the 100 senators or 435 House members. To access the complete database, go to www.taxpayers.org or www.opensecrets.org.

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