The Earmark Apocalypse
One of the odd things about John McCain’s campaign is that it’s extremely difficult to say based on his campaign pledges what would actually happen if he became president. One good example concerns the question of his pledge to veto any appropriation bill that features earmarks. Well, all the appropriations bills feature earmarks. And even Republican members of congress say they have no intention of giving up on earmarking. So bills get passed and then he vetoes them all . . . then what?
If both sides stick to their guns you could have, in principle, a government shutdown. Which would seem like a very strange thing to happen over an extremely small amount of money and an issue where it’s genuinely hard to see what the question of principle is. But it could happen. Or congress could back down. Or, most likely I guess, McCain could back down. But it’s really a very open question. I don’t think there’s any precedent for a president choosing to start his term in office with an apocalyptic battle with both parties in congress over a basically trivial issue. But, I dunno, it’d be pretty mavericky.
23 Responses to “The Earmark Apocalypse”
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September 18th, 2008 at 8:47 am
Or, you know, the congress could grow a spine and tell the executive to STFU. Vetoes CAN be overriden, after all, and they do like their pork…
September 18th, 2008 at 8:52 am
One point that I’ve read in several columns, most recently today’s Roger Cohen’s column in the NYT, is to ask what earmarks, as a group, are for.
The answer is infrastructure. And while the earmark process is a sucko way of funding investment into infrastructure, its what we’ve got. If earmarks are removed, as they should be, they must be replaced with a more rational method of investment into infrastructure. Just removing earmarks will likely do more harm than good.
I think the earmark debate/discussion should transform into an infrastructure discussion. Ask McCain and other republicans how they plan to deal with decaying infrastructure and where the money will come from.
September 18th, 2008 at 9:21 am
Actually, Jimmy Carter did this. If I recall correctly, one of his first acts was to mess with water project appropriations, which pissed off _everybody_ in Congress, especially members from the west. Ah, Google reveals all: see .
He would have had a better run as Prez if he’d not been antagonistic with Congress from the start. That’s actually (hopefully) the advantage of coming from the Senate — you’re not going to do something completely unproductive, because you know better. Except McCain says he will.
September 18th, 2008 at 9:25 am
What Anthony said. Appropriations bills, if appropriately larded with enough pork for both sides, are prime veto override candidates. Then McCain can be a lame duck from Day 1!
Not gonna happen anyway, since he’s not gonna win.
September 18th, 2008 at 9:29 am
“My friends, there’s different kinds of earmarks. Some “earmarks” aren’t really earmarks at all, they’re money for people in need. Now, the earmarks I promised to veto, let me tell you what kind of earmarks they are. Here’s what I meant. Here’s what I was promising in my campaign. That’s what I meant. You see my friends, it all makes sense. Now, my friends, we need to discuss E.D. Bob Dole was telling me the other day……….”
September 18th, 2008 at 9:47 am
cube asks the key question here. Someone get this into the mainstream…
September 18th, 2008 at 9:52 am
You have it all wrong. McCain vowed to veto any beer containing an earmark.
September 18th, 2008 at 9:58 am
What’s particularly awkward for McCain is that eliminating earmarks would eliminate many projects he’s claimed to support.
If anyone has Jewish relatives in Florida, they should spread that fact that as ThinkProgress itself noted, McCain’s elimination of earmarks would eliminate aid to Israel.
And as the Wonkroom noted, another of the earmarks that McCain would eliminate is “$1.2 billion of which was for better housing and facilities for servicemen and their families at military installations around the world.”
McCain is against American military families AND Israel.
This while the “Maverick ticket” asked for over $453 MILLION in earmarks the last couple of years. That’s Palin’s total as Governor though it apparently doesn’t include the $27 MILLION in earmarks she requested as Mayor.
That figure might not even include the “Bridge to Nowhere” as that money was allocated before Palin was Governor. Though Palin supported the “Bridge to Nowhere” during her run for Governor and continued to support it until Congress had killed the project…. and even then Palin still took the money.
She’s the earmark queen against earmarks, the oil addict against the oil dealers, and the straight talk sidekick that has told more lies in two weeks than most politicians tell in a year.
September 18th, 2008 at 10:23 am
What will he do about earmarks iff he’s elected president? It depends.
If Congress is controlled by the Democrats, he’ll veto all the spending bills, and blame the Democrats for shutting down government. There will be a lot of high Broderish praise for McCain’s maverickiness, and condemnation of the Democrats’ partisan McCain derangement.
If Congress is controlled by the Republicans, there will be no earmarks–they’ll give them some other name.
September 18th, 2008 at 10:42 am
I prefer the term Pörkerdämmerung.
September 18th, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I suspect that the reality is a bit more mundane. McCain promises to make the authors of earmarks “famous”. I assume that means that he will veto some bills and publicize the bridge-to-nowhere-style earmarks in them. If the President did that, I would suspect a veto override would actually be very difficult, because members of Congress from other districts wouldn’t want to have to go on record supporting that sort of pork.
I agree with #3 that this might poison McCain’s relationship with Congress. But there’s no doubt that the President, through the bully pulpit, could make the cost of voting for pork projects not worth the benefit.
September 18th, 2008 at 10:44 pm
If both sides stick to their guns you could have, in principle, a government shutdown.
I can imagine Ron Paul fighting to put lots of earmarks into every bill, just to get this result. Or at least fighting to gets lots of earmarks on anything relating to the Iraq War.
December 10th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I am a fool. I should of known this day would come again. I should of known. It was 1074 days ago and the year was 2005. The day, December 3rd. LSU loses to Georgia 34-14 in the SEC Championship Game… I am a fool. I should of known this
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