9,000 earmarks not the mark of a 'new era'

This editorial was published March 20, 2009

We thought earmarks were going the way of the flightless dodo bird. Not so.

Central Washington certainly knows an earmark when it sees one, and in the recent $410 billion spending bill that President Obama signed last week, they were popping up all over the place. The Tri-Cities netted $2 million for expansion of its Ben Franklin transit system, while Yakima's YWCA received $1 million for its women's shelter, courtesy of Sen. Patty Murray.

Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, got into the act with a $761,000 earmark for the Grand Coulee Hospital and another $475,000 for the Grant County transit system in Moses Lake.

When Obama promised on the campaign trail that these one-line appropriations were a thing of the past, we applauded. These earmarks may have praiseworthy goals, but they come at a price -- no experts to debate their soundness, and projects completed without competitive bids being taken.

When the president said he would cut a dollar for every new dollar spent in the federal budget, we applauded him again.

But now, when he said after signing the spending bill last week that "this piece of legislation must mark an end to the old way of doing business and the beginning of a new era of responsibility and accountability," we are silent.

What's there to praise about the 9,000 earmarks that were in the appropriations bill, including $9.4 million to clients of the PMA Group, a lobbying firm that was recently raided by the FBI for suspicious campaign donations and forced to shut down?

House Democrats have attached several new rules in hopes of appeasing critics. In the future, earmarks will be subject to a 20-day review by the relevant agency in the executive branch. Also, any single-line appropriation for a private, for-profit company will have to go through competitive bidding.

But let's not kid ourselves about a complete overhaul of this pork-barrel process. It's doubtful that executive agencies will be tough on lawmakers who essentially fund their departments. And legislation can be crafted in such a restrictive manner that only a single for-profit company could qualify for the earmark, making a competitive bidding process pointless.

We await this new era of responsibility and accountability. But we're doubtful. The earmarked spending bill is to blame for that.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Barbara Serrano, Spencer Hatton and Karen Troianello.