For all the attention earmarks receive, they account for less than 1 percent of the federal budget. Pennsylvania and New Jersey receive their share, but the two states are not high on the list of offenders. New Jersey ranks 27th in earmark dollars per capita; Pennsylvania is 31st.
The watchdog group Citizens Against Government Waste keeps a list annually of questionable earmarks. Among them are $400,000 for the U.S.A. Swimming Foundation in New Jersey (Democratic Sens. Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez and four House Democrats), and $250,000 for a Father's Day rally in Philadelphia (Rep. Chaka Fattah, D., Pa.).
Not all earmarks raise objections, however, and their merit is in the eyes of the beneficiaries. You don't hear many suburban commuters griping about the $1.2 million earmark secured by Sen. Arlen Specter (D., Pa.) and Rep. Joe Sestak (D., Pa.) for improvements to the Route 422 interchange at Oaks. Nor the $350,000 obtained by Rep. Jim Gerlach (R., Pa.) for upgrades to the Downingtown Library Senior Center.
Cracking down on earmarks will save money, but it's not clear how much. Lawmakers will find other ways to direct spending back home, through grants and other appropriations.
An earmark ban won't end the ability of Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.), for example, to announce a grant of nearly $500,000 to the drug-delivery firm OptiNose of Yardley to develop its "novel bi-directional nasal delivery technology." That grant comes courtesy of the 2009 federal health-care law.
Beyond cutting earmarks, Congress should adopt reforms that will discourage their return. A coalition of government watchdogs has proposed a sensible package of reforms, including: restricting earmarks aimed at campaign donors; barring legislative staff from fund-raising activities; auditing earmarks randomly; and creating a new database of all earmarks to increase transparency.
Better transparency continues to be a needed but unreliable piece of the puzzle. Congress has decreed that sponsors of earmarks be identified, but in practice congressional leaders haven't always insisted on it.
In the fiscal 2010 budget, for example, CAGW identified 81 anonymous earmarks worth $6.5 billion - more than one-third of all earmarks for that year. Most of them were in the Defense Department's budget. With so much stealth spending allowed, there is lots more work to be done.
