I have no doubt there are Tea Party folk and many others who would support an outright ban on earmarks. They may even gain traction among legislators as this issue hits their plate (very early in the next Congress, I hope and expect). But I have come to the conclusion that banning something is almost always the worst idea (like squeezing a water balloon) ... the money's gotta flow somewhere. Chances are it'll just move to someplace less accountable.
So ... Transparency, transparency, transparency -- that's the proper mantra. Anyone who supports putting all proposed legislation on the web for the public to see at least 72 hours prior to the first vote, well ... they have my support and my vote.
And there should be severe penalties for anyone voting on legislation that has not been treated in this fashion.
4 comments:
i just downloaded CAGW's "PigBook 2010" -- an accounting of earmark spending.
http://www.cagw.org/reports/pig-book/2010/
then i cranked it through a quickie perl script; because, that is what i am wont to do with my copious free time.
my script counted roughly $5 billion worth of earmark dollars in the report. $1.5 billion go to items supported by Ds and $3.5 billion go to the Rs.
... so it seems pretty clear to me who would be hurt the most by earmark elimination -- yup! those borrow-and-spend-and-print-money republicans, that's who.
(i'm looking at you John Boehner)
http://youtube.com/watch?v=CvnwOjDjnH4
http://youtube.com/watch?v=6CPX6Q4sIE0
... in the interest if full disclosure and transparency, the actual totals my script came up with were: Ds(1480309865.87) and Rs(3428445159.13) -- I split the proceeds proportionately in cases where items received support from both parties.
Yeah, I admit -- it's a total swag -but- hey, sometimes that's how I like to approach things.
Here are my assumptions laid bare (and as they should be: in code)
#!/usr/bin/perl
my %tally;
my $amount, $count;
open(INFILE, "pork.txt");
while($line = ) {
if ($line =~ /^\$([\d\,]+)/) {
$amount = $1;
$amount =~ s/,//g;
$count++;
}
if ($line =~ /^\(([RD])\-/) {
$tally{$1.'-'.$count.'-'.$amount}++;
} else {
$tally{'U-'.$count.'-'.$amount}++;
}
}
close(INFILE);
my $item, $party, $other, $cut;
my $dtotal, $rtotal, $amt, $total;
foreach $item (sort keys(%tally)) {
print($item."\t".$tally{$item}."\n");
if ($item =~ /([RD])\-\d+\-(\d+)/) {
$party = $1;
$amt = $2;
$other = $item;
if ($party =~ /[RD]/) {
if ($party eq 'D') {
$other =~ s/D/R/;
} else {
$other =~ s/R/D/;
}
$cut = $tally{$item} / ($tally{$other} + $tally{$item});
if ($party eq 'D') {
$dtotal += ($cut * $amt);
} else {
$rtotal += ($cut * $amt);
}
$total += ($cut * $amt);
} else {
$utotal += $amt;
$total += $amt;
}
}
}
print("\n----------\n");
print("(D) Total: $dtotal\n");
print("(R) Total: $rtotal\n");
print("(U) Total: $utotal\n");
print("Total: $total\n");
[Update ... I am wasting way too much time on this]
[Another Update ... had I prowled around the pig-book site a little longer, I would've found this nifty tool (a nice web front-end to all their 2010 data)]
http://www.cagw.org/reports/pig-book/2010/pork-database.html
According to that source, my script missed some $11.5 billion worth of earmarks. $6.5 billion of those are apparently "anonymous" (in direct contravention of the House and Senate rules, these earmarks had no identifiable requester).
I have no idea about the remaining $5 billion ... but have grown quite weary of it all.
BTW: Official tally according to the PigBook database: D's(5048602943) R's(2639932600) I's(13549180)
two-to-one disparity among D's and R's, but reversed.
... and it still only adds up to $7.7 billion.
<sigh>
http://techliberation.com/2010/12/07/this-is-earmark-transparency/
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