Rick Cohen

Conservative Attacks on Progressives under the Guise of Eliminating Federal Earmarks

Earmarks are hard to defend as a mechanism for good budgeting, but the attack of some Republicans on earmarks has a decidedly ideological bent focused on the character of the recipients as opposed to the highest principles of government financial expertise. Getting the most attention lately has been Congressman Jeff Flake of Arizona's sixth district, recently the subject of a flattering profile in the Wall Street Journal for his quixotic anti-earmarks crusade. Flake's crusade has been short on successful deep-sixes of earmarks to nonprofits, but Flake's Republican colleague from Indiana's 5th district, Steve King, issued a press release on Flag Day announcing his unique success in terminating one earmark. The dead earmark? For the construction of a gay and lesbian center in Los Angeles, removed from H.R.5576, the appropriations act for HUD, Treasury, Transportation, the Judiciary, and independent agencies. King wasn't trumpeting his successful defense of good budget practices, but his defeat of an earmark that would have funded "an organization that lobbies and advocates for same-sex marriages." He concluded that the gay and lesbian center had its right to advocacy, but that taxpayers shouldn't have to support an organization "that is so radically opposed to traditional values the overwhelming majority of Americans hold dear." It's not hard to see through Congressman King's anti-earmark stance to discern his ideological selectivity. The HUD/Transportation appropriations bill is generally one of the major grabbags of earmarks and goodies for wired nonprofits and special interests. But King zeroed in on--and zeroed out--one earmark for a gay and lesbian center. It might be worthwhile to monitor the suddenly post-Duke Cunningham fiscally righteous Republicans whose trepidation about some earmarks, due to their political ideology, might be greater than their concerns about typical bipartisan pork.

Rick Cohen: Author Bio | Other Posts
Posted at 12:57 PM, Jul 03, 2006 in Government Accountability
Permalink | Email to Friend