Our view on the budget:
Emphasis on earmarks overshadows big picture
Tue Feb 5, 12:22 AM ET



Earmarks — those often wasteful pet projects stuck into spending bills — are becoming the favorite target of politicians seeking to demonstrate their commitment to responsible budgeting.


In last week's State of the Union message, President Bush vowed to veto bills that fail to cut earmarks in half. The same day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bragged that Congress' Democratic majority already cut earmarks in half in the past two years. And on Sunday, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, chimed in, "We need to stop the pork barrel spending. ... This is big money."


Actually, in the grand scheme of federal spending, it isn't. That was never more clear than on Monday, when the president unveiled his $3.1 trillion budget for fiscal 2009. The deficit alone is projected to be $407 billion next year.


So, to put things in perspective: If Congress eliminated every earmark approved last year — $15.3 billion worth — it would cut 0.5% of federal spending and less than 4% from the deficit. That grand gesture would pay for what the nation spends in Iraq in just six weeks. In the pie chart of federal spending, earmarks don't even merit a slice.


Don't get us wrong. Earmarks can be pernicious, and they should be slashed. Many of them waste taxpayer dollars on laughable projects that feed lawmakers' egos and benefit contributors or even relatives. For a decade, most of it on Bush's watch, the Republican-controlled Congress pushed the number of earmarks to new heights. They were often secretly slipped into bills and, at their worst, contributed to some of Congress' sleaziest scandals.


Only recently, under public pressure, has the Democratic-controlled House forced sponsors to disclose all key details of their earmarks publicly. The Senate, also controlled by Democrats, hasn't gone that far.


All that said, no one is going to balance the budget by cutting earmarks. If the president and lawmakers really want to curb spending, they'll have to take a lesson from Willie Sutton, the legendary criminal of the 1930s who, when asked why he robbed banks, replied matter-of-factly, "Because that's where the money is."


In the federal budget, the real money is in the big entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, and in the defense budget, which has expanded to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.


Health care, in particular, is the monster that's eating the federal government, in ever bigger bites. Its cost, both publicly and privately, is rising faster than the rest of the economy is growing. Next year, the government is projected to spend $408 billion on Medicare — up 90% since 2001. And as baby boomers retire, the situation will only worsen.


But cuts in these areas would involve painful and unpopular decisions. The presidential candidates prefer to discuss how they'd expand health insurance coverage, not how they'd control costs. For them and other political leaders, it's much easier to rail against projects such as the "bridge to nowhere" — the notorious earmark in Alaska that came to symbolize waste — than it is to propose tough choices that would make a real difference in the bottom line.


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