Friday, 15 March 2013

How successful was the attempt to ban earmarks and pork barrelling in the House?

Earmarks were technically banned in March 2010 by the House Appropriations Committee.

Why? Several reasons.
Conservatives and Tea-Party supporters see earmarks as symbolic of fiscal irresponsibility.
Many on left and right see earmarks as bordering on the corrupt with Congressmen lured away from thinking about the national interest and instead focus on their re-election campaign by, "bringing home the bacon" to the "folks back home".
The famous Ben Nelson earmark during the passage of Obamacare and the long-lasting "bridge to nowhere" (2005 onwards) have discredited the process of earmarks.

How successful?
Criticisms centre around two main points:

  1. the ban didn't work and that Congressmen may have ways of working around the ban. This seems technically unlikely although there could be argument as to what should be defined as an earmark. Furthermore the ban hasn't stopped Congressmen taking credit for securing funding for their districts. See this article and this one.
  2. More importantly some say that the ban on earmarks has exacerbated the problems of growing partisanship and gridlock and hindered efforts at consensus building and compromise as Congressmen have less to gain from reaching across the aisle. Perhaps it helped kill Obama's gun-control efforts of 2013. See this article, and this one.

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