Call me old fashioned, but all the sweeping, absolutist ranting against “earmarks” as “pork” leaves me cold. Sure, we can all agree that gazillion dollar bridges to nowhere are a bad thing, but funding for projects at local universities? Support for renewable energy projects? Public works? Infrastructure projects?
Hell yes I think those are perfectly good uses of federal tax dollars. In fact, I’m of the school that thinks securing such assistance for worthy, meaningful home state projects is a fundamental part of a US Senator’s or Representative’s job. That’s why I appreciated this from the Freeps today:
Vermont does better than any other state when it comes to qualifying for federal money distributed on the basis of census data, a new study has found.
[…] According to the Brookings data, Vermont received almost $1.79 billion in federal money in fiscal 2008 based on Census-related statistics, or $2,873.67 per capita. The per-capita average for the country was $1,469.
Heck, with all the inevitable “earmark” whining that’s probably filling up the Freeps comment section by now, allow me to offer a hearty “damn fine job, gentlemen”.
Looking forward to the day (not too far off, maybe?) when our senior Senator becomes Chair of Appropriations…
let’s just be reminded that we have a very small population that cannot realistically take advantage of the economies of scale enjoyed by states with larger populations and, by extension, larger tax bases. Gov. Douglas likes to paint his own state as fiscally irresponsible for being socially responsible. With “friends” like that, who needs enemies! Looking ahead, he has no real faith in Vermont’s values.
This is why we need and deserve investment in our future from DC. Our more restrained approach to permitting and development has spared us some of the worst outcomes of the national greed cycle that will now cost us all dearly. Like Goldilocks, we seem to have found a scale of living that many would agree is just about right. If we are to continue to provide modern services and infrastructure to our population so that Vermont remains agile, adaptive and an asset to the nation as a whole, despite (or perhaps because of) its size; we need a little reinvestment from DC.
The complaint with earmarking is the process by which it takes place, not the substantive merits of the recipients (though some earmarks do provide a hearty chuckle now and then). The problem with earmarks is the lack of scrutiny, the lack of transparency, and the lack of accountability. Why can’t such appropriations go through the proper appropriations process?