March 29, 2024

Earmarks: Bringing Home the Bacon

Florida lawmakers end-run the federal budgetary process to spend hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on pet projects each year.

Amy Keller | 12/1/2008
Alaka’i Consulting and Engineering develops remote sensing technology to help detect trace molecules found in explosives and improvised explosive devices. Headquartered in Hawaii, it opened an office in Largo in 2006 and since then has tripled its revenue and grown its operation there from two to 12 employees.

Recently, the U.S. Army gave the company $1 million to work on its advanced explosives detection program. U.S. Rep. Bill Young (R) of Pinellas County and two congressmen from Hawaii simply slipped the $1 million for Alaka’i into the Army’s budget via the practice known as “earmarking” — no need for competitive bidding.

What is an earmark?
What is an earmark?
An earmark is a kind of pork-barrel spending in which legislators insert money into the federal budget outside the budgetary review process — usually for specific projects or programs in the lawmaker’s home district or state. The process is legal but controversial because it circumvents debate and prevents input from executive branch agencies that will administer the money.

[Photo: Getty Images]
Alaka’i President Ed Dottery points out that the company gets five times as much money through competitive bidding and that the $1 million provided a “very timely boost.” Without that assistance, “it surely would have taken twice that long to get our potentially lifesaving technology into the hands of war fighters.”

Earmarked projects aren’t necessarily unworthy. Alaka’i’s IED detection system, if perfected, could save American soldiers’ lives. Florida colleges and universities use earmarks to fund cutting-edge research. Dozens of Florida cities and counties, meanwhile, rely on earmarks to pay for improvements to their wastewater infrastructure, roads and public transit systems.

The practice is controversial, however, because it blatantly end-runs Congress’ budgetary review process. No committees review or prioritize earmarked appropriations. There’s no debate and no input from the executive branch agencies that will administer the funding. As with Alaka’i’s $1 million, money for specific projects, private companies, non-profit groups or state and local governments is simply slipped into larger spending bills.

Often, lawmakers tack on the earmarks at the last minute at the behest of lobbyists hired by the companies or local governments. Earlier this year, Alaka’i hired Washington, D.C.-based lobbying firm Van Scoyoc Associates, where two former Young aides now work, to help it get more federal funding. Alaka’i has paid the firm $90,000 since January, federal lobbying records show.

Not surprisingly, many of the employees and political action committees of companies that get earmarks contribute to the campaigns of the lawmakers who sponsor the earmarks, creating a pay-to-play culture on Capitol Hill.

And while earmarking accounts for less than half of 1% of the annual federal budget, the spending isn’t inconsequential. Young and other lawmakers slipped a total of $18.3 billion worth of projects into 2008 spending bills, according to a tally by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a non-partisan group that works to eliminate wasteful government spending. Florida raked in about $477 million of those earmark dollars — about 2.6% of the national total.

Next page: The article continues, along with charts on Florida's Top Earmarkers.

Tags: Politics & Law, Government/Politics & Law

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