Earmarking

Earmarks || media type="youtube" key="PUWsru52WPc" height="315" width="420" || Knapp Earmark Playlist--worth your time. media type="custom" key="24650652" Earmarking--Identify first what it is, the history of the practice, who does it (lots of aspects here). The first use of an earmark came in 1817 when Congressman John C. Calhoun of South Carolina proposed the Bonus Bill. He wanted to use the earnings bonus from the Second Bank of the United States to fund internal improvements for economic development and national security, or roads that would connect the East and South with the West. He argued that the General Welfare clause and Post Roads clause in the Constitution allowed for this federal spending to occur. President Madison, however, disagreed and vetoed the bill. //References: []////; []// || During the campaign for the November election, several Republican and Tea Party candidates promised a tighter belt on the government and an end to earmarking. Last week, the House adopted a self-imposed, two-year ban on earmarks. This comes after President Obama promised in his State of the Union address to veto any bill that contains earmarks. Catching the hint, Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said that his committee will not pass any bills with earmarks in them. The House and Senate still must clearly define what qualifies as an earmark, and the differences in the chambers rules will affect how earmarks are treated in each. The earmark moratorium is a big victory for Republicans and Tea Party members who have pushed for earmark reform. //References: [] // //[] // //[] // ||
 * Creative Presentation of
 * **History of Earmarking **
 * **Earmarking in 2011**

media type="custom" key="8316806" || It's interesting that at this year's State of the Union Address and in many other political scenes, it has been said that Congress wishes to put an end to the number of earmarks that go through every year. In this video however, MSNBC NEWS found that over the past 20 years, billions of dollars in earmarks have sat unspent. Some of this is simply because of typos and red tape. When you hear some of the silly mistakes or typos that result in tax money sitting there, it shows the more evil side of earmarks. || media type="custom" key="8316864" || This video gives great contrast between the good and evil sides of earmarking. Sean Kelly who is a proponent of earmarks in Congress says that the Founders gave legislation the power to spend money. Earmarks are a good way for members of Congress to respond to their constituents and adapt to local issues/conditions. On the other side of this, Jim Harper speaks as an opponent and says earmarks are just a way for members of Congress to be "bought off". The spending is purely political and without proven merit. He would like to also see reduced log rolling in Congress. ||
 * **Money for Nothing: Billions Lost in Earmarks-Black Hole**
 * **Earmark Battle Heats Up**
 * **Earmarks in Federal Spending Bill**
 * []** || After doing some research on C-span I came across this video and it talks about the spending bills in the House and Senate. The video talks about the House not being able to pass any spending bill up until Christmas time, where they then pass a resolution allowing government spending to continue through next October. However, this year the Senate decided to adjust the budget for the needs of the economy, so the Senate planned to take all spending bills that were not passed in the House and place them inside of one monsterous bill which is being called an omnibus. The Senate omnibus is only 1,924 pages long but it contains 6,600 earmarks with a total cost of 8 billion dollars.This creats a large problem in both the House and Senate, because if the Senate were to pass the omnibus it would need to go back to the House, but the congressmen are wanting to leave for Christmas, and if the Senate does not pass something by the deadline the government will be illegaly funding its programs. ||
 * [] || This video I found gives some great insight into the world or earmarking. Some of the "proposed pork" includes: $59 million of Pacific Salmon Research, $1.76 million for a honey bee lab in Texas, $400K for teacher training to combat bullying, and $200K for tattoo removal for violence prevention. This bill has not yet passed yet, but it contains already almost 9,000 spending earmarks. Obama passed a Hollow Reform bill in the name of earmarks. The Republicans are kind of wary about this frivilious spending in the name of earmarks and are more concerned about nuclear power plants. ||

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local towns with such things as repairing streets, building a water treatment facility, or honey bee research, all of which play an important role in the area in which they are needed. But they have also been condemned as an evil because they use tax payers money for things they may see as a waste. Without these earmarks, however, many projects would go unfunded. - The politicians who support these projects work hard to get these projects going with earmarks and with the money that they recieve for these earmarks gives them a positive figure in their state. Bring home the "pork" not only makes them look good in front of their people, but also gets them votes that will ensure their spot in their position. - If there were no earmarks, they money that would have been given to the earmarks would be spent on politicians own "pet projects." With earmarks, at least the money gets spent on projects that often benefit the whole community. || - Some earmarks are spent on such projects like the "Bridge to Nowhere" and on airports in places where there are no people. These earmarks can be considered "just plain wrong" because they do not put the money set aside for earmarks to good use. - The money set aside for earmarks is already borrowed money and our country doesn't need to be put into more debt that it already is, even if earmarks are a very small amount of that debt. - Taxpayer money is not put into appropriate use. ||
 * Necessary Evil || Just Plain Wrong ||
 * - Necessary, because they often help

Some people, such as Senator Lamar Alexander say that the ban on earmarks "doesn't save a single penny." Banning earmarks could possible give more deciding power to the president of where to spend the federal money. It could also take away part of Congress's power to distribute funds. Opponents of the ban believe that the money supposedly saved by banning earmarks will just be spent elsewhere on different projects. State governments will then lose a lot of funding and could possibly suffer. People will always be trying to find loopholes around laws or in this case bans. This article gives examples of different ways of saving money besides cutting earmarks.
 * Will the ban hurt the economy?**
 * Resources:** []

Most people hear the word earmark and don't know exactly what it means, but the people who do know the definition will usually have a bad connotation of it. Think about it though, are all earmarks bad? Some people have used earmarks to get updated cop cars or to replace an old bridge that might collapse anytime soon. Of course, some projects that use earmarks to gain funds seem to be unimportant and those are the projects that people like to bring up when discussing earmarks, but are those the only ways the federal money is being used? Last year earmarks made up 15.9 million dollars, which seems like a lot until you look at the total federal budget of 3.5 trillion. Earmarks took up .45% of the total budget. So should all earmarks be banned? //**resources:**// [] and []
 * Are all earmarks bad?**

While Congress campaigns to ban earmarks, our military may be undermining their efforts. "Defense budget experts say the campaign to banish earmarks from Congress is unlikely to succeed because lawmakers will find other ways to direct money to military projects in their districts." Our country cannot simply stop supporting the military and their projects, especially in times of war, and to ban earmarks would take away the money that is essential to their survival. We all know that the government is in debt and needs to decrease spending, but is banning earmarks going to fix the problem or just create a bigger one? What do you think, should earmarks be banned? Read the article via the link below for further details.
 * Military spending stopping earmark ban?**
 * Reference: []**

At the end of 2011, states, like Kansas, had projects awaiting the funding that was expected to come from earmarking. With the House's ban on earmarking, projects like Kansas's flood control project (worth $20 million) could be doomed. It seems that the problems of excessive government spending are falling on the local level. Without earmarking, it is harder for regional governments to ensure funding for projects that are neccessary for their area and for their area's interests, like Kansas's aviation project. According to David Goldstein from the Eagle Washington Bureau, the band on earmarks will also be giving the Obama Administration more control over the budget. Is it better to keep earmarking in the hopes of funding neccessary local projects and possibly some frivolous spending or to surrender the power to one administration?
 * What affect will the earmark band have on the state/local level?**
 * Article: []**