{"id":2254086,"date":"2024-05-28T07:16:02","date_gmt":"2024-05-28T11:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/earmarks-are-never-a-winning-political-strategy\/"},"modified":"2024-05-28T07:26:52","modified_gmt":"2024-05-28T11:26:52","slug":"earmarks-are-never-a-winning-political-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/earmarks-are-never-a-winning-political-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"Pursuing Earmarks Doesn&#8217;t Yield Political Victories"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">12<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fearmarks-are-never-a-winning-political-strategy%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2254086&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>House Republicans\u200d continue to navigate controversies\u2062 of \u200bearmark requests, \u2062efforts that seem to argue for an \u200doutright ban on it. After previous issues involving requests \u2064for LGBT groups, Congress believes \u2063it has established &#8220;reforms&#8221; \u2062to prevent future disputes. Its deep-seated issue lies in the \u2064political difficulties resulting from\u2062 such requests, \u200birrespective of whether they come from non-profit organizations. The new chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Tom Cole,\u200c R-Okla., issued guidelines\u2064 that exclude \u2064non-profits from requesting\u2062 community project funding, a change prompted by Republican objections to earmark funding going to LGBT-affiliated groups. However, controversy remains as the change could limit many organizations&#8217; ability to request federal funds.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<div>\n<figure>                         <\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>House Republicans keep thinking they can \u201cbuild a better mousetrap\u201d when it comes to federal earmarks. Their actions keep making the case for Congress to ban them (again) outright.<\/p>\n<p>Following a controversy earlier this year surrounding earmark requests for <a href=\"https:\/\/rollcall.com\/2024\/03\/06\/lgbtq-related-earmark-dropped-from-spending-package-amid-furor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">LGBT groups<\/a>, congressional leaders think they have established enough \u201creforms\u201d to prevent similar disputes from emerging. But a better question surrounds why lawmakers think these pork-barrel programs are worth the political bother to begin with.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>New Request Guidelines<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>In late April, the newly installed chair of the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., issued <a href=\"https:\/\/appropriations.house.gov\/news\/editorials\/chairman-cole-dear-colleague-fy25-community-project-funding-request-guidance\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">guidance for representatives<\/a> requesting earmarks (er, \u201ccommunity project funding\u201d). The guidance highlighted \u201cone notable change \u2026 non-profits are no longer eligible for community project funding in the economic development initiative account.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/14\/us\/politics\/gop-earmarks-lgbtq-centers.html\">Multiple<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2024\/04\/25\/congress\/coles-earmarks-00154325\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">press reports<\/a> indicate this change arose from Republican objections to Democratic member requests that sent earmark funding to LGBT-affiliated groups. In March, as Congress considered two massive pseudo-omnibus spending bills, lawmakers <a href=\"https:\/\/rollcall.com\/2024\/03\/06\/lgbtq-related-earmark-dropped-from-spending-package-amid-furor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">stripped out<\/a> a $1 million earmark for the William Way LGBT Community Center in Philadelphia, in large part because \u201ca conservative activist found a fetish group hosts a monthly party at the community center.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Stripping out the earmark represented the rare case of Congress doing the right thing and standing up for taxpayers, not to mention common sense. But neither stripping out this particularly questionable request, nor reforming the process in the way Cole has outlined, will solve the larger problem it raises.<\/p>\n<p>In an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2024\/04\/25\/congress\/coles-earmarks-00154325\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">interview with reporters<\/a>, Cole defended the change to exclude nonprofits from certain earmarks: \u201cSome of these are unobjectionable, some of them <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/china-may-never-become-a-superpower\/\" title=\"China May Never Become a Superpower\">create political problems<\/a> for people. That\u2019s just the reality of it. I shouldn\u2019t have to have a political problem in my district because I voted for a bill that had your earmark in it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But earmarks don\u2019t have to come from nonprofit organizations to cause \u201cpolitical problems.\u201d The infamous \u201cBridge to Nowhere\u201d in Alaska that sparked widespread outrage didn\u2019t come from a nonprofit organization, yet it caused \u201cpolitical problems\u201d due to its wasteful nature.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the kinds of \u201cpolitical problems\u201d to which Cole referred lie primarily in the eye of the beholder. Lawmakers may not have the capacity or ability to suss out those problems until they become public, at which point it will have become too late to avoid controversy.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Numerous Organizations Exempt<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Cole\u2019s Democrat counterpart, House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., made a different argument against his new guidance. She <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/14\/us\/politics\/gop-earmarks-lgbtq-centers.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">pointed out<\/a> that excluding nonprofits means many types of entities would have little ability to request federal funds: \u201cIt\u2019s religious organizations, Boys and Girls Clubs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, veterans organizations, work force training, senior housing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Politico <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2024\/04\/25\/congress\/coles-earmarks-00154325\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">noted<\/a> that the House Appropriations guidelines continue to omit earmarks from the Financial Services and Labor-Health and Human Services-Education spending bills \u2014 the latter being the largest one in the federal government. The new guidance will exempt all nonprofit organizations from participating in earmarks in several of the other spending bills. And at a certain point, the restrictions and limitations should cause Congress to ask an obvious question: <em>Is all this worth the hassle<\/em>?<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Practical Argument Against Earmarks<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Heretofore, most conservatives have focused largely on the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2021\/03\/29\/earmark-vote-showcases-house-republican-support-for-big-government\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">philosophical arguments<\/a> against earmarks. This line of thinking emphasizes earmarks as a \u201cgateway drug\u201d to additional spending, by giving members of Congress reasons to vote for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-aims-to-downplay-inflation-as-government-pushes-more-big-spending-bills\/\" title=\"Biden Aims To Downplay Inflation As Government Pushes More Big Spending Bills\">big spending bills<\/a> they might otherwise oppose.<\/p>\n<p>But there are practical reasons for lawmakers to conclude that Congress cannot implement earmarks in a way that eschews political controversy. One can easily envision a scenario whereby the new restrictions prevent a member from requesting funds for a worthy organization in his district, yet that member still has to defend supporting questionable actions (e.g., fetish parties) associated with a project in another member\u2019s district.<\/p>\n<p>For both philosophical and practical reasons, Congress should think again when it comes to continuing its earmarking ways. If the nearly $35 trillion debt won\u2019t convince lawmakers to exercise some spending restraint (for once), perhaps the thought of being embroiled in another political scandal will finally give them pause.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<div>\n<p>      Chris Jacobs is founder and CEO of Juniper Research Group, and author of the book &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/dp\/1645720020\">The Case Against Single Payer<\/a>.&#8221; He is on Twitter: <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/chrisjacobsHC\">@chrisjacobsHC<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>House Republicans believe improved federal earmark tactics can win favor. However, their actions only reinforce the argument for an outright ban on earmarks, echoing past controversies. Despite efforts to implement &#8220;reforms&#8221; following disputes over LGBT group earmark requests, it&#8217;s questionable whether these measures will deter future altercations<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":2254087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/pexels-printexstar-11624819.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2254086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/pexels-printexstar-11624819.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2254086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2254086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2254087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2254086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2254086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2254086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}