Bailout Bills and Earmarks- a puzzle
Yesterday's Senate vote on the $ 700 billion bill to bail the economy out may indeed have been what was needed to avert catastrophic meltdown of the overall national economy. On the other hand, it may not have. For me and the vast majority of Americans, it's hard to tell and some discussions about the bill arouse skepticism and concern. For example, an NPR report on the bill Wednesday evening included the commentator opening the 400 plus page document at random pages to see what they addressed. None of the pages he turned to seemed to clearly address the mortgage, financial system, foreclosure issues. Instead they addressed such arcane things as the tariff on arrows of a certain size and circumference. For us in the West, there was also the notation that the bill included the billion dollars sought to replace historic timber payments in Oregon and Washington, something wrangled over for the past couple of years. What appears to have happened is that the bailout bill has become an 'omnibus' or 'Christmas Tree' bill festooned with things that every interest group in Congress has wanted in order to get it passed. Strangely, both Senators Obama and McCain supported this bill which is a prime example of the kind of bill that has been decried, particularly by Senator McCain, for earmarks.
Which leads me to an aside. I am not against earmarks per se. I am against earmarks appended to a bill at one am without anyone having a chance to review them. I am against earmarks that are 'hidden' or that are attached to bills simply to sweeten bad legislation or to poison good legislation. The idea of earmarks is that many things the government should do don't fall neatly into federal agency budgets, either in their timing or in the particular character of the expenditure. The ability of congressional leaders to put forth a proposal to spend money on such projects, on paper, allows government to be more nimble and responsive and less bureaucratic. I can't see anything wrong with such strategies if they're done in the light of day with full concurrence of the each house.
The real problem is that they're often not used this way. And the bailout bill, loaded with such additions, is likely an object lesson in bad lawmaking. We are being admonished that there is a need for speed in order to shore up the entire national financial system. Haste, as my Father often said, makes waste. Without time to analyze clearly the contents of this suddenly gigantic document, we risk passing decisions that we will later regret, perhaps as much or more than the crisis on Wall Street. We elect leaders to Congress to "deliberate". What is happening here is not deliberation.
Am I for it or against it? Hard to know? But I am sure that the average American is looking askance at the rumored insertions in the bill as it stands, and feeling as well that the government is once again playing fast and loose with reality. Sad....and frightening
Which leads me to an aside. I am not against earmarks per se. I am against earmarks appended to a bill at one am without anyone having a chance to review them. I am against earmarks that are 'hidden' or that are attached to bills simply to sweeten bad legislation or to poison good legislation. The idea of earmarks is that many things the government should do don't fall neatly into federal agency budgets, either in their timing or in the particular character of the expenditure. The ability of congressional leaders to put forth a proposal to spend money on such projects, on paper, allows government to be more nimble and responsive and less bureaucratic. I can't see anything wrong with such strategies if they're done in the light of day with full concurrence of the each house.
The real problem is that they're often not used this way. And the bailout bill, loaded with such additions, is likely an object lesson in bad lawmaking. We are being admonished that there is a need for speed in order to shore up the entire national financial system. Haste, as my Father often said, makes waste. Without time to analyze clearly the contents of this suddenly gigantic document, we risk passing decisions that we will later regret, perhaps as much or more than the crisis on Wall Street. We elect leaders to Congress to "deliberate". What is happening here is not deliberation.
Am I for it or against it? Hard to know? But I am sure that the average American is looking askance at the rumored insertions in the bill as it stands, and feeling as well that the government is once again playing fast and loose with reality. Sad....and frightening
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