Transparency On Earmarks

President Obama and OMB Director Peter Orszag have taken some well-deserved heat for their laissez-faire attitude towards the thousands of earmarks in the 2009 omnibus appropriations bill. Today, the President addressed the issue, calling the bill itself “imperfect” and making two pledges:

1. Eliminate the unworthies. The President said: “And finally, if my administration evaluates an earmark and determines that it has no legitimate public purpose, then we will seek to eliminate it, and we'll work with Congress to do so.”

2. Reform earmarks: “Now I know there are members in both Houses with good ideas on this matter. And just this morning, the House released a set of recommendations for reform that I think hold great promise. I congratulate them on that. Now I'm calling on Congress to enact these reforms as the appropriation process moves forward this year. Neither I nor the American people will accept anything less.”

(The full text may be found here.)

I think Americans should demand more: transparency about the 2009 earmarks, public input into getting rid of the unworthy ones, and a real reform proposal from the Administration.

The first pledge is essentially a promise to “rescind” some earmarks – send legislation to Congress asking for their removal (which Congress could refuse). After campaigning for two years on moving to higher standards in governance, a symbolic rescission package that eliminates a few earmarks doesn’t seem to pass the seriousness test (and, by the way, what is the standard for “legitimate public purpose”?). A better approach – that is consistent with the President’s pledges for transparency and soliciting citizen’s views – would be to let the people decide what stays and what goes.

Specifically, the previous Administration initiated a publicly-available database of earmarks in appropriations bills (see http://earmarks.omb.gov/) as part of its weak-kneed effort to cut earmarks in half. The Obama Administration should immediately update the database to include the omnibus bill, expand the information to make it easy to identify the requester and recipient of the earmark, and then provide a public comment period during which Americans could identify those earmarks that simply should go away. Anything less would be to continue to ignore the promises made during his run to the Presidency.

The second pledge essentially says: we will turn earmark reform over to the House. Super idea. Ranks right up there with a henhouse safety reform run by foxes. The Administration has an obligation to lead on this issue. When the Obama Administration does send to Congress its rescission requests, that package should contain a legislative proposal for specific earmark reforms. It is time for the President to say exactly what he is willing to do to eliminate this wasteful and corrupting process.