Listen, not all earmarks are bad, in fact the majority are not and they are the system Congress uses to dole out tax dollars for in District projects. The majority are not illegal or unethical and of course most of them are not useless, but there is still a ton of wasted tax dollars spent, and the money will be spent one way or the other, which is the point of my piece today.
President Obama stated during the SOTU that he would sign no bill that had earmarks in it. That's ludicrous. Even the ever soft spoken Harry Reid is right on this issue. It was an applause line written and delivered to appease the Republicans and no one in that room believes that earmarks will suddenly go away because they won't.
What good can come of this reform is simple if it happens and that would be a more public and transparent system of how and more importantly where the money will be spent. But the days of hiding earmarks in popular legislation that is surely to pass as a way of getting these funding measures passed has to stop. Transparency is critical as we move forward and we have a right to know where our dollars are being spent. But to believe we can eliminate earmarks is wrong and cannot happen, it's just not realistic nor is it fundamentality sound business.
We must start spending tax dollars more responsibility and the days of Federal tax dollars paying for and indoor rain forest or an aquarium in Chicago should be shelved until we are in the black in this country, which means more than likely never again in our lifetimes.
Politicians will most likely change what we currently call earmarks, but that doesn't solve the problem. A system where all worthy projects are submitted and then a competitive bidding process is utilized would be a good start. Emergency funding should be set aside for real emergencies. A fairer and more equitable method of disbursing tax payer dollars needs to be examined and installed and if most people realized how much of their own money goes to other states and not back to them would enrage them if the truth were commonly known.
We do have serious financial problems in this country. Allowing the Bush Tax cuts to expire would have been a huge shot in helping to reduce our debt. It didn't happen. We cannot continue to allow spending to keep at this pace any longer and that's clear no matter what political affiliation you have. Earmarks are an excellent place to start, but we can't stop there. Let's end our occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan once and for all. Let's responsibly cut defense spending. Let's pass real legislation that forces down the cost of heath care so that Medicaid and Medicare stops being such a burden and let's stop pretending that this is all someone else's fault and someone else's problem.
Even this liberal knows that we can't continue to play the game the way we currently are. This kind of change is mandatory and it will take courage and bravado and honesty to accomplish, but maybe we are finally ready for that for the alternative is disastrous. This morning in Spain the unemployment rate is 23%. If you don't think that's possible here, think again. Some things do require political leadership and this is one of them. If we don't stop playing politics with spending and tax dollars we will be joining Spaniards soon enough. That's not a trip I want to take. Do you?
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