Trump and Congress consider reviving pork projects<\/b>
\nWASHINGTON \u2014 A battle is brewing in Congress over whether to put pork back on the legislative menu.
This isn\u2019t about bacon, but so-called \u201cearmarks,\u201d the specially-tagged funding provisions tucked into spending bills by members of Congress to channel federal money to favored home-state projects.
Critics say the funding provisions foster profligate spending and corruption \u2014 with millions of dollars doled out to lawmakers with the most political muscle, rather than to the projects with the most merit. House Republicans banned the provisions in 2011 after an earmark-related corruption scandal sent a former lawmaker and lobbyist to prison.
But supporters want to overturn the ban; by killing earmarks, they say, Congress has relinquished its spending power to federal bureaucrats who decide which projects get federal money. And the pro-earmark camp got a surprise boost from President Trump on Tuesday.
\u201cI hear so much about earmarks \u2014 the old earmark system \u2014 how there was a great friendliness when you had earmarks,\u201d Trump said at a bipartisan White House meeting on immigration. \u201cMaybe all of you should start thinking about going back to a form of earmarks\u2026 because this system really lends itself to not getting along.\u201d
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There\u2019s no question that earmarks helped grease the legislative wheels in Congress, with spending projects offered by House and Senate leaders assuring \u201cyes\u201d votes on key bills. They were bargaining chips beloved by Republicans and Democrats alike.
So maybe it’s no surprise that more than seven years into the ban, many lawmakers are now lamenting the loss of earmarks, and citing their constitutional spending power, as well as a broken appropriations process, to urge their return.
\u201cI think we\u2019ve just given up so much power to the executive branch, number one,» Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., the vice chair of the Rules Committee and a member of the Budget and Appropriations Committees told reporters Tuesday morning. «Number two, obviously you\u2019ve lost a legislative tool that\u2019s useful, and number three you\u2019ve lost the ability to literally take care of problems in your own district, you know, or the districts of other members that you need to help \u2026 so the case for them is overwhelming.\u201d
The House Rules Committee will host two hearings next week to discuss the possibility of bringing back earmarks. But Republicans insist that whatever comes out of the process won\u2019t be the same earmark system of days past.
Caroline Boothe, a spokeswoman for Rules Committee Chair Pete Sessions, R-Texas, told USA TODAY that they aren’t using the word \u201cearmarks.\u201d Instead, the hearings are focused on \u201ccongressionally directed spending.\u201d
Sessions suggested he could be open to a reformed earmark process that looks at the value of each project, among other factors. He said the process would have to be transparent, based on merit, and involve input from states.
All the pro-earmark chatter sparked fierce and immediate blowback from House conservatives and their allied outside groups.
\u201cWhen you\u2019re talking about draining the swamp it is very difficult in the same mouthful to suggest that we are going to reinstitute earmarks,\u201d said Rep. Mark Meadows, who chairs the hardline House Freedom Caucus and is close with the president.
\u201cGenerally it leads to more spending and less accountability, so I can\u2019t imagine that it would be any different now,\u201d Meadows said.
Heritage Action, a conservative advocacy group, said earmarks are a form of \u201cpork-barrel spending to buy votes and undermine conservative opposition to big-government legislation.\u201d
\u201cIt is nearly unthinkable that after President Trump ran a historically successful election to \u2018drain the swamp\u2019 in Washington, D. C., Congress would consider reinstating one of the most egregious examples of cronyism on Capitol Hill,\u201d Heritage Action\u2019s chief executive officer, Michael A. Needham, said in a statement blasted out to reporters on Tuesday.
Earmarks started to fall out of favor as federal spending ballooned during President George W. Bush\u2019s time in the White House. Critics ridiculed projects like the so-called \u201cBridge to Nowhere,\u201d a $320 million earmark for a bridge in Alaska from the tiny town of Ketchikan to the equally tiny Gravina Island.
But the ban only came after a set of earmark-related corruption scandals, including one that sent ex-Rep. Randy «Duke» Cunningham, R-Calif., to prison after he admitted putting earmarks into spending bills to repay defense contractors who showered him with cash and expensive gifts, including a Rolls-Royce and a yacht.
There was also ex-super lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who also went to prison in part for lavishing gifts on lawmakers in exchange for earmarks and other favors. Abramoff once reportedly called the appropriations committee an \u201cearmark favor factory.\u201d<\/p>\n

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