Political insiders are closely following the debate about “earmarks,” with
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) making the case for individual projects
that create many jobs. There is a lot of hot air and hypocrisy surrounding many
who oppose earmarks for others while pushing earmarks for their home states and
districts.
Let me suggest a very specific compromise proposal for what are called earmarks.
Members of the House and Senate should be allowed to offer such proposals with one
major stipulation. Each proposal should come with a short but detailed employment
impact statement, modeled after environmental impact statements. The employment
impact statement should detail exactly how many jobs would be created by each proposal,
and at what cost.
When I supported Reid during the last campaign, before using “earmarks”
that he advocated in support of his campaign, I asked his staff for details about
job creation and cost. The examples I cited in columns supporting Reid were strong
job creators for Nevada. I reviewed the numbers, and in several cases published
them, and in fact I did receive some e-mail from Nevadans whose jobs were saved
or created by them.
Let’s call these individual bills not “earmarks” but targeted job creators.
On the other hand, there are many “earmarks” that are pure pork, waste
and abuse. These should be weeded out as a matter of policy and not allowed or enacted,
based on factual employment impact statements that assess the jobs gain with a traditional
cost-benefit analysis.
America needs more targeted job creators while we end the waste and abuse of those
proposals that are not justified based on a cost-benefit analysis.
Harry Reid is right. We need more jobs and less hypocrisy while we end the waste
and lower the deficit.