'Earmarks' is a polite word for political pork. It's the way politicians orchestrate their own re-election. A Congressman, for example, in a congressional district that hosts the possibility of a super-expensive high-speed rail construction project, is struggling to get re-elected. His chances are marginal. But, lo and behold, the federal government opens their coffers and bestows $700 million for the construction. That's a huge amount of money for his poverty stricken district. He gets re-elected.
That's what happened to Congressman Jim Costa in the Central Valley just last year.
How did all this come to be? Chief of Staff in the White House, Rahm Emanuel (from Illinois), in discussions with the President (from Illinois) and Senator Richard Durbin (from Illinois) and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood (from Illinois) and Joe Szabo, head of the FRA (from Illinois) orchestrated the addition of $8 billion for HSR into the ARRA Stimulus package in 2009. The Transportation budget already had included about $2 billion for this purpose. And at the last minute, overnight as it happens, that extra $8 billion became a done deal.
That became the earmark or political pork bucket from which the Obama Administration could award funds not only to Illinois, but to other select states and congressional districts. And that's what's been going on.
All of which is to say that the high-speed rail program in Washington is a pork distribution program, not a Transportation program. Rail transit is merely the seductive screen. "Pay no attention to the man behind the screen," we are told; instead, watch the picture of gorgeous whizzing high-speed trains. Yeah, right!
What's happened, espcially in the last several months, is that the United States has started looking behind the screen and seen the reality of what will be the wasting of billions of dollars on a project that we don't need. (And three states have turned them down.) But, to the degree that those dollars aren't even being spent on high-speed rail -- merely on Amtrak upgrades -- it's therefore far harder to object. And, by calling all passenger rail improvements "high-speed rail," the government creates an illusion that is totally misleading.
Well, we are being scammed and are finally waking up to that fact. I hope it's not too late.
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ABC NEWS TEN TV
High-speed rail for California: Just another earmark?
7:39 PM, May 16, 2011
Written by
Paul C. Barton
By Paul C. Barton, Gannett Washington Bureau
pbarton@gannett.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a year when earmarks are off limits to members of Congress, California's high-speed rail project illustrates another option for getting federal funding to trumpet to constituents lobby the executive branch exhaustively.
In the end, budget analysts say, lawmakers can claim credit just as if they had obtained money for a special project in their home states or districts the old-fashioned way: by inserting it into a spending bill.
In the name of fiscal responsibility, both the House and Senate have banned such "earmarking" practices for two years. But that doesn't mean an often-furious competition for federal spending isn't still going on behind the scenes.
And the White House tried to give bragging rights to as many congressional Democrats as possible last week by spreading $2 billion in high-speed rail money all over the country.
California got $300 million, and several Golden State Democrats rushed out press releases to associate themselves with the grant or to tout its benefits to the state.
The federal money was available because Rick Scott, the Republican governor of Florida, turned it down, as have several other Republican governors.That thrilled California Democrats.
"These investments will help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, ease congestion on our roads and offer more transportation options for residents," said Rep. Doris Matsui of Sacramento.
But California Republicans, including Reps. Mary Bono Mack of Palm Springs and Devin Nunes of Tulare, want no part of it.
"Simply put, the high-speed-rail project will cost too much money -- by some estimates, up to $80 billion -- and will provide too few benefits to residents of the Coachella Valley," Bono Mack said. "We just can't afford it, especially in these difficult economic times."
The rail money is "the closest thing to an earmark," said Scott Frisch, congressional scholar at California State University, Channel Islands. "This is something very big and visible."
Frisch and Sean Kelly, another political expert at the university, last year published the book Cheese Factories on the Moon that challenged the conventional argument that earmarks are wasteful, pork-barrel projects that symbolize out-of-control federal spending.
While some earmarks may qualify for that label, they argued, earmarks overall make up a tiny part of the $3.7 trillion federal budget. And they provided a way to tell which lawmakers were fighting for which projects.
Now, Frisch said, "A lot of it is behind the scenes."
Members of Congress and their staffs contact executive branch agencies in a variety of ways to lobby for distributions of federal funds. Terms such as "lettermarks" and "phone marks" have come to describe the practice.
"Everybody complained about earmarks, but at least you could [track] them," Frisch said.
While lawmakers' efforts to lobby agencies are largely out of view, they have little problem revealing some of their methods when they work.
When California got its high-speed-rail grant last week, for instance, Democratic Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer released a copy of a letter they had sent in February to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, asking for high-speed rail funds.
The letter, in fact, asked the Obama administration to give California virtually all of the $2 billion. Off all the high-speed rail projects around the country, the senators said, California's had "the greatest potential for success" in transforming transportation patterns and demonstrating economic and environmental benefits.
Representatives of watchdog groups that traditionally oppose earmarks, such as Taxpayers for Common Sense and Citizens Against Government Waste, said they are reluctant to consider such grants as substitutes for earmarks because the decisions are being made by agencies, not lawmakers.
But if it becomes apparent that grant decisions are not based on established, clearly identifiable criteria, then they do merit questioning, the watchdog groups say.
Tom Schatz of Citizens Against Government Waste said lawmakers will continue to take credit for grants. Most constituents won't know the difference from an earmark, he said.
Meanwhile, the California delegation remains divided along party lines on the merits of the rail grant.
Said Sam Farr, D-Carmel: "We cannot ignore the benefits of high-speed rail, especially at a time when our local economy continues to struggle with high unemployment and stagnant economic development."
Countered Nunes: "If there is infrastructure money available, it should be used to improve Highway 99, where it would actually improve the economic health and environment of our region. Yet the Obama administration proved long ago that it had no concept of how to prioritize spending."
Gannett, Washington Bureau
