No earmarks in the Recovery Act? Please.
After being asked about earmark reform during his meeting with House Republicans in Baltimore, President Obama claimed the Recovery Act passed last year didn’t contain any:
With respect to earmarks, we didn’t have earmarks in the Recovery Act. We didn’t get a lot of credit for it, but there were no earmarks in that.
Is Obama telling the truth? It depends on what the meaning of the words ‘is’ is.
The president promised in early 2009 that the stimulus bill would have no earmarks. So he and the Democrats didn’t call them earmarks.
The bill was, however, filled with pet projects and pork that easily fall under the definition of an earmark.
An analysis by ProPublica and WNYC Radio in New York found project after project in the $787 billion bill that, had they been attached to any other legislation, would be defined as an earmark.
In theory and publicity, the package is “earmark free.” But it contains dozens of narrowly defined programs that send money to specific areas or cater to special interests, despite President Obama’s pledge to pass “an economic recovery plan that is free from earmarks and pet projects.”
… In part, the answer hinges on what’s an “earmark.” Democrats insist they are nowhere in the plan; Republicans see “pork” everywhere. So we cribbed from criteria Congress laid out in a 2007 reform bill: language that aims spending at specific programs, states or localities, often at a member’s request.
Specific location? The Senate stimulus contains $50 million for habitat restoration and other water needs in the San Francisco Bay area. There is another $62 million for military projects in Guam.
Specific industry? The House bill includes an amendment authored by Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley setting aside $500 million for biofuel makers, which he says, would bring jobs home to Iowa.
Specific program? There’s $198 million to compensate Filipino World War II veterans for their service. Most don’t live in the United States.
ProPublica even published a partial list.
The president is — and has been for a year — playing semantics. The projects are earmarks.
Sources:
The White House, Jan. 29, 2010
Remarks by the President at GOP House Issues Conference
CNN, Jan. 6, 2009
Obama will ban earmarks from stimulus bill
ProPublica, Feb. 5, 2009
In the Stimulus Bill: An Earmark by Any Other Name
ProPublica, Feb. 4, 2009
