I caught a podcast this morning from Charles Grodin that talked about a CNN/Anderson Cooper segment looking into ‘legislative earmarks’. In case you don’t know, ‘earmarks’ are the little (and sometimes not so little) riders that our representatives add on to various pieces of unrelated legislation to fund pet projects in their districts. And have no doubt – all of this ‘back door’ spending adds up.
In 2006, Congress handed out $29 billion through earmarks…
When the Democrats took control of the House in this past election, they promised they would crack down on this practice. Unfortunately, little has been done to date, and no one from either party really wants pay any more than lip service to eliminating earmarks.
Here is the clip from Anderson Cooper 360 that Charles Grodin was referring to:
It’s obvious from this clip that many of our elected officials are uncomfortable with making their earmarks public. They have the misconception that they do not need to be accountable to the public – an arrogance that becomes clear in their refusal to disclose how they are trying to spend our money. (Kudos to those 6 that did disclose, and the 5 others with no earmarks at al!)
While it’s clear that our elected officials have no desire to eliminate earmarks, what they do want to eliminate is the use of the word ‘earmark’. According to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, these should be called ‘legislatively directed spending’ instead.
No crackdown on the practice. No transparency requirements. Just a name change.
Maybe they should have just called it “Business As Usual” instead…
It’s no wonder people are so turned off by politics. While the rest of society has become more connected, open, and transparent, so many of our leaders look increasingly isolated and out of step. It’s time we stop voting for political parties and start voting for our beliefs. We need a fundamental rethink of the way things need to are working.
Or more specifically – not working.
Having our elected officials use semantic nuances to try to spin a web of confusion further undermines their rapidly diminishing credibility. And its our two party system that props them up and lets them get away with it. This nation will never reach its potential without some fundamental changes in our government.
Preserving the status-quo there just doesn’t cut it anymore…