No dip in earmark spending despite White House push for transparency

Transparency
requirements pushed for by the Obama administration have not changed
the total spending on earmarks for 2010, according to a study by a
group critical of the practice.

The amount of money directed by
lawmakers in 2010 to specific projects back in their districts adds up
to $15.9 billion, according to the analysis by Taxpayers for Common
Sense,

{mosads}Earmarks in 2009 added up to a total of $19.9 billion.
But that figure drops slightly below the 2010 total to $15.6 billion
when taking out $1.8 billion included in an emergency war-spending
bill, another $2.3 billion in earmarks for the Army Corps of Engineers
operations and maintenance projects and roughly $200 million for
earmarked disaster aid.

In
2010, lawmakers received fewer earmarks to pay for Army Corps of
Engineers projects but overall funding didn’t decrease. Taxpayers for Common Sense says the Obama administration included money for those projects in
its budget request, a departure from the way the local projects were
handled during the Bush administration.  

“High levels of
special interest spending remain and powerful lawmakers are hoarding
cash for their districts while the rest of the Congress fights for
table scraps,” said Ryan Alexander, president of Taxpayers for Common
Sense.

“Spending should be a meritocracy,” she added. “Instead
of simply rewarding the constituents or campaign contributors of the
politically powerful, our taxpayer dollars must be spent on only the
most critical and important projects
nationwide.”

With Congress set to consider another emergency war-spending bill this year, the 2010 number could increase.

A White House spokesman said preliminary data shows progress in reducing earmark levels.

“This is a good step forward and Congress should be applauded, but
there is more work to accomplish to restore the public trust,” said
Thomas Gavin, a spokesman for the White House Office of Management and
Budget.

Congress
defines spending as an earmark if it goes toward a project at the
formal request of a lawmaker. Most of the $1.4 trillion in 2010
discretionary spending is directed by executive branch agencies.

Appropriators,
who review the president’s budget requests and win more earmarked funds
for their constituents than other lawmakers, have defended the
earmarking process, noting earmarks account for less than 1 percent of
the federal budget.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman
David Obey (D-Wis.) and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel
Inouye (D-Hawaii) have sought to make it easier for the public to
review earmarks, requiring last year that all lawmakers post earmark
requests on their official websites.

Obama, in his State of the
Union address last month, called on lawmakers to go a step further by
putting “all earmark requests on a single website before there’s a vote
so that the American people can see how their money is being spent.”

As
a presidential candidate, Obama called for cutting earmarks down to
their 1994 levels, or about $8 billion. He has since called for a
competitive bidding process for earmarks going to for-profit companies,
a move that has been adopted by the House but not the Senate.