Why Communities Are Cheated Out Of Earmarks

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If you’ve been reading my blog for some time now, you’ll remember how I discovered the economic punishment and job disincentives Rep. Paul Ryan has been dishing out on his district. Doing some simple math and fiscal reasoning while researching appropriation figures at Fedspending, it turned out the amounts Ryan shortchanged his district over the past three years have been staggering.

Beginning in 2005 and running into 2007 (2008 figures not available yet) Ryan has shorted his district by nearly $1 billion a year for a total of over $3 billion!! This figure was arrived as a weighted average of all congressional districts in Wisconsin and clearly shows a precipitous drop differential of federal funds appropriated by Ryan after 2004. The result? Ryan’s district is now in shambles. It now boasts two of the top three areas in the state for unemployment and things are only beginning to get worse.

As a citizen blogger, I have always been an advocate for smartly written and responsible federal earmarks while simultaneously opposing most state and local (property tax inflating) originated hand-outs. Here in Janesville, the city has several non-emergency public works projects on the books that many residents have opposed. Two of them, a new city bus service garage and a pedestrian tunnel have met strong local resistance and have been described as frivolous spending.

A couple years ago, people laughed when I suggested that if the bus garage isn't built in Janesville, President Bush would gladly build it in Baghdad. Still others scoffed with rage at the idea that if Janesville doesn't petition for the tunnel dollars now, the money will be spent in some other town or state. Nonsense they said, these must be the words of a crazed tax-n-spend welfare pushing democrat.

Ron Paul Excerpt: (March 16, 2009)
The total level of spending is determined by the Congressional leadership and the appropriators before any Member has a chance to offer any amendments. Members’ requests are simply recommendations to allocate parts of that spending for certain items in that members’ district or state. If funds are not designated, they revert to non-designated spending controlled by bureaucrats in the executive branch. In other words, when a designation request makes it into the budget, it subtracts funds out of what is available to the executive branch and bureaucrats in various departments, and targets it for projects that the people and their representatives request in their districts. If a congressman does not submit funding requests for his district the money is simply spent elsewhere. To eliminate all earmarks would be to further consolidate power in the already dominant executive branch and not save a penny.

That is where most of our district's federal (mis)allocated dollars have gone.

By cutting off his own district, Ryan made sure George W. Bush had a surplus to buy political capital and feed his war profiteers. For this, Ryan is rewarded. He has now been anointed as the Republican Party's rising star, lord and savior.