[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 23, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S450-S452]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Earmarks

  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, if you have been following the circus in this 
town long enough, you probably remember earmarks, the infamous special 
interest spending provision that party leaders used to sprinkle over 
unpopular legislation, sort of like heavily subsidized sugar.
  Even if you aren't familiar with this concept, you may be familiar 
with specific wasteful earmarks, such as the infamous $223 billion 
``bridge to nowhere'' in Alaska or the $3.4 million turtle tunnel in 
Florida, which was precisely what it sounds like, a 13-foot-long 
underground tunnel that was intended not for people, not for 
automobiles, not for train traffic but for turtles, or the so-called 
``monuments to me,'' buildings that politicians named after themselves.
  Earmarks were everything Americans couldn't stand about Washington, 
DC. They enabled corruption, and they facilitated waste. They wreaked 
of entitlement. They were the swamp, and then they went away for 7 
wonderful years and counting. They went away because Republicans banned 
them after the 2010 election cycle, when the tea party wave rolled 
through Washington, lifted by an anti-cronyism message. Now some 
politicians in the House of Representatives are trying to bring 
earmarks back. Now, I have heard some bad ideas in my time in the 
Senate, but this one takes the cake.
  Just like in a horror movie, the swamp thing is coming back to life--
or at least it is trying to--even after we hit it in the face with a 
shovel.
  Earmark fans never left Washington, of course. They have just been 
lying low, waiting for memories of their waste and abuse to somehow 
fade from our public consciousness, from our awareness, and our 
discussions about Washington.
  Now, 7 years later, these politicians and their special interest pals 
think they have found a nifty argument to rehabilitate pork-barrel 
spending. They point to the dysfunction in Congress and say earmarks 
would somehow make all of that better. It is a little bit like saying: 
There is a fire over here, let's pour some gasoline on it and see what 
happens.
  Sure, these offenders admit earmarks are frequently unseemly. They 
have to acknowledge that. There is no getting around that point, but 
they claim earmarks are a kind of industrial lubricant for the sausage-
making factory that is Congress.
  According to them, bringing earmarks back will get the machine 
churning out sausage again, just like before. Like many terrible 
political arguments, this one has some acknowledgeable, superficial 
appeal.
  Congress is, indeed, dysfunctional, and earmarks probably would make 
it easier for some people in Congress, some party leaders and others, 
to buy votes for their bills, but why should we believe our problems 
would be solved if we just hand more power over to the already powerful 
few in Congress, if we make it easier for them to pass unpopular bills 
like ObamaCare or massive amnesty?
  It was the elites from both parties who reduced Congress to its 
present lowly state. The public despises Congress, and it certainly is 
not because we killed earmarks. It is because the public distrusts the 
elites who rule them and the awful unrepresentative laws they passed 
with the help of earmarks, no less, prior to the 2010 election cycle, 
when the American people said: Enough is enough when it comes to 
earmarks.
  Now, the fight over earmarks is really a fight over two very 
different, competing visions of how Congress should govern. The 
Washington establishment likes the current system, where just a few 
lawmakers negotiate and write bills behind closed doors.
  This system, itself, works great for the swamp. If you like the 
swamp, then you probably love earmarks. It keeps cash flowing through 
certain offices and their alumni's lobbying shops on K Street. There 
are tough decisions made in secret without any accountability or 
fidelity to the public, to the people we represent.
  This corrupt system excludes all but a handful of well-positioned 
Representatives and Senators. So it effectively disenfranchises 
hundreds of millions of Americans whose representatives have little say 
over what actually passes into law. Bringing back earmarks would only 
make that situation worse.
  An alternative system would be one of transparency, of 
decentralization, of legislative accountability. Representatives and 
Senators would write legislation collaboratively in the open for all to 
see, forcing popular compromises and, yes, from time to time, taking 
tough votes.
  The reason Congress doesn't work like this right now is because the 
establishment is afraid of what the public might see and how they might 
vote in response to what they see. Governing out in the open would 
require Members to do the hard work of learning about issues before 
forming coherent positions.
  The present broken system is much easier, at least in this critical 
respect: It lets a small handful of lawmakers do all the thinking and 
the scheming, and it rewards docile lawmakers with the occasional 
earmark to tout to their constituents back home, to tout to them as if 
to ask: Aren't I wonderful?
  Earmarks would make life better for politicians, in other words, but 
it would make life worse for the country, much worse. That we are even 
considering such a bargain; that it is even being discussed as a 
serious matter in the House of Representatives is an insult to logic 
and is exactly why Congress is held in such widespread public disdain.
  Eventually, I believe, Congress will reform itself. As the old adage 
goes: ``If something cannot go on forever, it won't,'' but it will take 
a lot of painful decisions before we get to that point.

[[Page S451]]

We will have to struggle hard to extricate ourselves from the mess.
  Bringing back earmarks would represent a step backward in this 
struggle--back to cronyism, back to waste, and, yes, back to the 
swamp. This is something we cannot allow. This is something that cuts 
against our very interests as Americans and as Members of an 
institution that has called itself the world's greatest deliberative 
legislative body.

  So I would ask my friend from Arizona, Senator Flake, for his 
thoughts on the matter and what he thinks about the wisdom, or lack 
thereof, in bringing back this horrible tradition.
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Utah. Let me just 
say that during a televised, bipartisan meeting recently at the White 
House, the President suggested that we might be more collegial around 
here, more efficient in Congress, if we would just bring back earmarks. 
The reaction from the lawmakers present was decidedly mixed. Some 
cheered that declaration, but most of us, I have to say, recoiled at 
the thought.
  As someone who served in Congress during the gluttonous earmarking 
era, when pork was used regularly to buy and sell Congressmen's votes, 
I can tell you firsthand this is an idea that nobody ought to be 
laughing at or embracing. Amidst public corruption investigations and a 
constant stream of embarrassing headlines about sweetheart deals for 
family and friends, Congress was forced to place a moratorium on 
earmarks about 7 or 8 years ago.
  Earmarking does not improve the legislative process. In fact, it 
compromises Members into ignoring unethical behavior and voting for bad 
bills that they would otherwise oppose. Remember, ObamaCare was 
approved with just a single vote being secured with an earmark--the one 
that was derided as the ``Cornhusker kickback.'' Likewise, when 
Senators receive earmarks, they are agreeing to support hundreds of 
other earmarks stuffed into an appropriations bill.
  When people say the appropriations process would be a lot smoother, 
would work a lot better with earmarks, I would respond by saying that 
there was a period of about 10 years when earmarks really hit the high 
point, in 1994 or 1995 through 2006. I served in the House from 2001 to 
2012, and during that time we had earmarks for part of the time and 
went without earmarks part of the time. And 2005, I think everybody 
recognizes, was the high point--or the low point, if you want to put it 
that way. There were a total of 16,000 earmarks spread across 12 
appropriations bills and 1 authorization bill, worth about $30 billion.
  One would think that if we had that much to grease the skids in 
Washington, we should have been able to pass all appropriations 
measures and move through the process. We would have a more collegial, 
compliant body. During that time, in 2005--I just checked--we passed 
only five appropriations bills in the House--only five. We ended up 
with an omnibus bill, and that was when Republicans controlled the 
House, the Senate, and the White House.
  So this notion that we have to have earmarks, and if we just get back 
to earmarks then this place will run smoothly and we will get through 
the appropriations bills--with 16,000 earmarks, worth about $30 
billion, only five appropriations bills were approved.
  We all remember too well the indoor rain forest in Iowa, the teapot 
museum in North Carolina, and, of course, the bridge to nowhere in 
Alaska. When a challenge was made to that infamous bridge and other 
pork projects, not-so-veiled threats were leveled at Senators and 
Members of Congress who dared question their colleagues' projects.
  We simply cannot go back to that time.
  I remember well during that time one particular episode when we were 
all in HC-5 of the House basement. It was during the appropriations 
season, and all of a sudden one Member ran into the room just 
breathless. He had the list--the list from the Appropriations 
Committee--as to who was getting the earmarks and who wasn't. It was 
largely a staff-driven process. But then everybody would--the thing 
was, we have to get these earmarks; we have to go announce them quickly 
in the House before the Senators take credit for them. That was the 
atmosphere at that time. That was not a high point. That is not 
something we want to return to.
  I was looking at some of what I said in the House at that time and 
some of what I quoted when we were trying to get rid of them in 2009. 
At that time, The Hill newspaper had reported that a prominent lobbying 
firm was the subject of a Federal investigation into potentially 
corrupt political contributions. It had given $3.4 million in political 
contributions to no less than 284 Members of Congress.
  There were lobbying shops that were set up for that purpose--simply 
to be at the intersection of earmarks and policy.
  The Hill also reported on February 10, 2009, that this firm, which 
specialized in obtaining earmarks in the defense budget for a long list 
of clients was ``recently raided by the FBI.''
  The New York Times noted that the same lobbyist for that firm ``set 
up shop at the busy intersection between political fundraising and 
taxpayer spending, directing tens of millions of dollars in 
contributions to lawmakers while steering hundreds of millions of 
dollars in earmark contracts back to his clients.''
  This is a process that simply is too tough to police when it gets 
this way.
  During my time in the House, over a series of a number of years, I 
went to the House floor literally hundreds of times to challenge 
individual earmarks in these spending projects. For those who think 
that you can go and challenge these earmarks and have somebody say 
``Yes, all right, I didn't want to spend money on that teapot museum 
anyway; that is a bad idea,'' that rarely happened. In the hundreds of 
times I went to the floor to challenge earmark spending, there was only 
one vote that I won--only one in hundreds of times. That is because the 
process of logrolling takes over, where one Member will say: I will 
protect your earmark if you protect mine. It was more likely that I 
would get 30, 40, 50 votes, and if I was challenging a popular 
appropriator, I would get even fewer because nobody wanted to challenge 
them because their own earmarks would be threatened.

  This is not a process that we want to go back to. This is not 
something that we should be proud of in our history. Several of our 
colleagues ended up in jail. One of them actually had an earmark bribe 
menu printed, in hand, on his congressional letterhead which read: If 
you want an earmark for this much, here is what it will cost you, under 
the table. He ended up doing time in prison. Not every Member did that, 
obviously, but it is a process that is too difficult to control.
  Here is the worst part about earmarks generally. Some will say that 
it is just a fraction of spending; it is just a couple of percentage 
points off the Federal budget, which is true. But the problem is, once 
you get back into earmarking, the Appropriations Committee spends an 
inordinate amount of time--the majority of its time--focusing on that 1 
or 2 percentage points of the funding and gives up its oversight 
responsibilities on the other 98 percent of the budget.
  We simply don't do the oversight that we should be doing on the 
Federal agencies and how they spend this money. That is the worst part 
of earmarking--that we simply give up oversight. Yes, we pay a lot of 
attention to that 1 or 2 percent of funding, but we give up oversight 
on the rest, effectively.
  So I hope we don't go there. That is why I am introducing bipartisan 
legislation, joined by my colleague from Utah, to permanently ban all 
congressional earmarking. Senators McCaskill, Toomey, McCain, Lee, 
Portman, Johnson, Rubio, Ernst, Fischer, and Sasse are all on as 
cosponsors. I hope that when this is brought to the floor, it passes, 
and we don't go back to this practice of earmarking.
  I turn back to my colleague from Utah to hear what other thoughts he 
has on the subject.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, I am grateful for the work that has been done 
by the Senator from Arizona on this topic.
  One of the first times I remember seeing the Senator from Arizona on 
TV, many years before I was elected to the Senate, was while he was 
serving in the House of Representatives. I saw him interviewed on 
national television, talking about this issue--talking about the 
corruption that inevitably flows

[[Page S452]]

from a system that allows for favors like these to be handed out. I 
remember the immense respect I had for this man whom I did not yet know 
and wouldn't come to know for another decade or so, but who was willing 
to call out something that he believed was contrary to public policy, 
contrary to any system that would result in a good consequence, a good 
outcome for the American people.
  I also appreciate the comment he made a moment ago about a familiar 
refrain by defenders of earmarks. Senator Flake mentioned that over 
time people would point out that earmarks were, even during their 
heyday, maybe representing a couple of percentage points of total 
Federal spending. Well, that may be true, if you want to put it that 
way, in those terms, as they inevitably did at the time, quite 
persistently. But it overlooks a few things. It is a much larger 
percentage, of course, of discretionary spending, and of domestic 
nondefense discretionary spending could even be a larger percentage. 
But more to the point, something that is only 2 percent doesn't 
necessarily mean that it is having a favorable impact and that it is 
not having an impact that is itself very significant.
  When you look at a mile-long train, the engine car might represent 
only about 2 percent of the total length of the train, but it is what 
is driving the train. It is what is determining where the train goes, 
and if that train is going in a wrong direction, that can be very bad. 
So I have always found unpersuasive the initially persuasive argument 
that this is just a tiny segment of Federal spending.
  At the end of the day, earmarks represent everything that we are 
uncomfortable with about Washington. Moving back to them would 
represent a departure from a very favorable reform that we had in this 
body 7 years ago.
  So I would ask Senator Flake, who has served in Congress longer than 
I have and who has seen this, to tell us what he fears most about 
bringing back earmarks.
  Mr. FLAKE. Well, I thank the Senator from Utah. One of the things I 
fear most is that we are having a tough enough time controlling 
spending.
  Dr. Coburn, who served in the House--I admired his time there. He 
went after earmarks and after a lot of these appropriations, and he did 
the same thing when he came to the Senate until the last day he was 
here. He had a saying. He said: ``Earmarks are the gateway drug to . . 
. spending addiction.''
  What he meant by that is if you give an earmark in an appropriations 
bill, some people will say ``Well, it is just an earmark for a couple 
of million dollars for a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame''--that was 
actually one. The problem is, once you get your earmark there, you are 
obligated to support that entire bill, no matter how ballooned it 
becomes.
  During the period, particularly in 2001 to 2006, boy, we bloated up a 
lot of appropriations bills. We were running basically at almost a 
surplus in 2001, and by the time we got to 2006, it was anything but, 
and nondefense discretionary spending and defense spending related to 
earmarks increased significantly. It just was not a good trend.
  So what I fear most is that we have been able to have some control on 
nondefense discretionary spending, and the growth of that has been 
slower than other things, but once you start getting earmarks in these 
bills, then you will be obligated to support them no matter what. Then 
you support bloated appropriations bills just to protect your earmark. 
The process of logrolling takes effect--I protect yours if you protect 
mine.
  That is one thing I fear.
  I turn it back to the Senator from Utah.
  Mr. LEE. Mr. President, Senator Coburn said this is the ``gateway 
drug'' for big government. That is such an appropriate analogy. It 
reminds me of a news clip that I saw a couple of years before I ran for 
the U.S. Senate, when there was coverage of a very large spending bill 
that came up short--and those on the news commented at the time: Well, 
it is well understood in Washington that what is now going to have to 
happen is they are going to have to add probably tens of billions of 
dollars to this bill, which they will do, and they will end up getting 
it passed by adding these ``sweeteners'' as they call them--earmarks, 
essentially--in order to get people to vote for them for the same 
reason that Senator Flake just mentioned.
  The dangers of bringing back earmarks are numerous, and it is my 
strong view that we should not do that. We should avoid this like the 
plague.
  Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.