Earmarked millions now a little more transparent
Although Sen. Claire McCaskill has kept her promise of not awarding earmarks, other Missouri politicians have doled out hundreds of millions of dollars during the past year without public debate and review.
Within the U.S. House of Representatives, the nine Missouri members earmarked a total of more than $125 million during the 2009 fiscal year for projects they sponsored alone. Sen. Kit Bond, who is not running for reelection, earmarked projects totaling $120 million. Only six other senators earmarked a larger total on their own.
It is now extremely easy to see how much money politicians are giving out under the guise of earmarks. Missourians who want to know exactly who is getting these funds can find the information online. A new database, made available by the Center for Responsive Politics and Taxpayers for Common Sense, has compiled earmarks awarded by senators and House members for the fiscal years 2008 and 2009.
In a written statement earlier this year, McCaskill said that a major fault with the practice of earmarking is that it takes money from a more competitive funding process.
“Most earmarks just skim money off of other programs — competitive grants for law enforcement, locally decided projects for roads and bridges — and redirects it to projects that are chosen by one criterion: someone in Congress wants to fund them.”
The Sunlight Foundation, a nonprofit organization that works to promote government transparency, explains earmarks more bluntly. “Because earmarks are hard to identify, some members use them to secretly award their biggest campaign contributors or, in the infamous case of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, to exchange them for bribes.”