This is the most inclusive definition of
earmarking.
Making the
earmarking process more transparent will be a step in the right direction toward increasing accountability and minimizing reckless spending.
For the future prosperity of America, FreedomWorks supports the House Republican Conference for putting a stop to the irresponsible and wasteful Congressional
earmarking process.
House Republicans have finally stepped up to rein in wasteful and corruptive
earmarking spending," said CCAGW President Tom Schatz.
For their record-breaking race to drink the congressional
earmarking Kool-Aid and throwing their earmark reform pledges overboard, Reps.
But "the Lockheed Martins aren't involved in the debate about
earmarking because it had no material effect on them.
This history plays into a network of metaphors that
earmarking opponents use to make the practice seem that much more repugnant, exploiting the word's unsavory association with lowly food animals.
Earmarking enables individual members to designate money for projects in their home states that have not gone through the normal review.
Texas received more than $400 million in earmarks in 2010, but according to Dave Levinthal, a former Dallas Morning News reporter who is editor of the watchdog blog OpenSecrets, "compared to some of the states in the United States, such as Hawaii, North Dakota, West Virginia, Vermont, Texas is way, way down the list in terms of the amount of money per capita that is it actually receiving and having funneled to it the
earmarking process.
Although the
earmarking system tempts lawmakers toward fiscal irresponsibility, not all such spending is wasteful.
Under the
earmarking process, lawmakers slip allocations of money targeted to specific programs or organizations into larger bills, often enormous measures appropriating money for huge federal agencies.
But recent figures show that the practice of
earmarking money is still as much a part of federal politics as hot air and blue suits.
