Definitely out of tune:
"Bill add-ons draw critics’ comparison to earmarks; House members say requests competitive" by Theo Emery, Globe Staff / June 13, 2011
WASHINGTON — For years, members of Congress have used earmarks to funnel billions of taxpayer dollars to favored recipients in districts in Massachusetts and across the country. After House and Senate leaders established a two-year ban, earmark critics cheered a new era of fiscal discipline.
The celebration, it turns out, may have been premature.
Under a new system instituted just months after House GOP leaders pledged to clamp down on earmarks, the $690 billion defense bill that the House passed late last month included hundreds of millions of dollars in added spending authorizations. Though the process is nominally competitive, the requests in many cases appear destined for districts of lawmakers who proposed them.
Among them is $4 million that Representative Niki Tsongas of Massachusetts requested “to develop innovative nanomaterials and nanomanufacturing processes for warfighter systems.’’
And she is supposed to be this liberal, antiwar woman Democrat from Massachusetts, right?
The Center for High-rate Nanomanufacturing at the University of Massachusetts Lowell benefited from a $4 million earmark in 2010 that the Low ell Democrat and other lawmakers promoted.
I gue$$ I'd be high with a little help from my friend$, too.
Although the center is not guaranteed the money this year, the amendment appears tailor-made for the center’s study of microscopic technology.
Budget watchers say that the new system deployed in the defense bill shows how difficult it is to root out earmarks, which are a pittance relative to the overall budget but have become symbolic of the influence of special interests....
It is not clear that the amendments in the defense legislation will result in money flowing back to recipients in districts, because the legislation passed last week does not allocate the money; it only authorizes the Pentagon to spend it. And, it is not yet clear whether the Senate will approve of the House approach.
But even so, members of Congress can claim credit for trying to secure money for their districts, even if the measures do not pass, said Benjamin H. Friedman, a research fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute.
“As long as Congress has the power of the purse, something like earmarks [is] going to be possible,’’ he said.
Tsongas’s amendment was among almost 250 that members of the House Armed Services Committee sought to tack onto the defense bill. Most of the amendments were lumped together in committee, approved in blocks, and then passed on May 26 with the main bill, along with new amendments added on the floor.
The money for all of the added expenditures comes from a new fund called the Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund. The account contained about $1 billion intended to help the Pentagon pay for unfunded priorities.
A nice round number, 'eh?
Instead, it became a slush fund for Congress, said Steve Ellis, vice president of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
“That became a cash cow for the offsets for these earmarks. Lawmakers raided that to the tune of more than $600 million,’’ Ellis said....
You know, a mere pittance.
President Obama, who has threatened to veto any bill with earmarks, has also signaled his unhappiness with the policy. In its policy statement over the defense bill, the White House said that it objected to using the $1 billion transfer fund to support efforts that the administration didn’t request, though it did not threaten a veto.
Ellis said he had been pleased about the House earmark ban. Now he is “cautiously pessimistic’’ about whether lawmakers truly want to end them, in light of the rush to secure funds in the defense bill....
You would think they would go deaf with all the tax money stuffed in the ears.
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