FROM THE ARTICLE:
President Barack Obama on Wednesday declared war on congressional pet projects known as earmarks that can vastly inflate the pricetag of legislation with sometimes wasteful spending.
Some of the legislative items slipped -- at times surreptitiously -- into congressional bills address worthy concerns, but the US president said earmarks often "have been used as a vehicle for waste and fraud and abuse."
"Projects have been inserted at the 11th hour without review -- and sometimes without merit -- in order to satisfy the political or personal agendas of a given legislator, rather than the public interest," he said.
Obama added: "There are times where earmarks may be good on their own, but in the context of a tight budget, they might not be our highest priority."
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Obama said that going forward, his administration will impose strict measures aimed at "reining in waste, abuse and inefficiency -- saving the American taxpayers up to 40 billion dollars each year in the process."
He unveiled new ground rules about how and when lawmakers and introduce such proposed projects in the future, and praised moves in the House of Representative to craft similar guidelines.
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"Each earmark must be open to scrutiny at public hearings, where members will have to justify their expense to the taxpayer," the US leader said.
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The president added that, at a time of national fiscal and economic duress, the country can ill afford to continue profligate spending.
Is President Obama right to tighten the purse strings and make lawmakers more accountable for their pet projects? Should there be transparency in legislation so the American people can look it up online and see the earmarks for themselves and know which legislators are most responsible for it?
"Earmarks" are not precisely the exact same thing as "pork" and we should keep that in mind. According to Time magazine, the most prolific earmarkers also tend to be the ones garnering the most pork, but calling something an "earmark" doesn't automatically mean it is waste or evil. It just means money is set aside for _______________ [FILL IN THE BLANK].
Pork, on the other hand, is definitely considered wasteful or frivilous spending.
Here are some examples of Time Magazine's "
Top 10 Outrageous Earmarks of 2008":
1. $2 Million for Children's Wooden Arrow Makers
2. $1.9 million for the Charles B. Rangel Center for Public Service
3. $1 Million for New York Woodstock Museum
4. $192 Million for U.S. Territories' Rum Industries
5. $188,000 for the Lobster Institute at the University of Maine
6. $98,000 to Develop a Walking Tour of Boydton, Virginia
7. $50,000 for the National Mule and Packers Museum in Bishop, California
8. $583,000 for the Montana World Trade Center
9. $460,752 for Beer Ingredient
10. $150,000 for "Rat Island"
Any projects on this list that are worthwhile and which ones do any of you think are outrageous waste? See the details of these projects
here.
