The New York Times, perhaps taking a cue from NASA administrator Mike Griffin’s testimony in Senate hearings last week, criticizes the tendency of Congress to add earmarks to NASA’s budget in an editorial Sunday:
The space agency is struggling to mount a vigorous program of exploration and scientific research within a tight budget. So what has Congress been doing to help it along? Not much, judging from revelations that hordes of greedy senators and representatives have siphoned more than half a billion dollars from NASA’s budget for the 2006 fiscal year to finance pet projects. It is a terrible diversion of money.
Earmarks, like the weather, is a topic everyone seems to talk about (especially at this moment), but no one seems able to do anything about. While the Times editorial concludes that “Congress should forgo earmarks completely”, when push comes to shove later in the current appropriations cycle, will members of Congress have the self-restraint needed to abstain from earmarks? One has doubts.
Since there is effectively zero threat of a Presidential veto one can have NO doubts about the (non-existent) self-restraint of this Congress to ear-marking. The only other method left to combat this practice is shedding the light of day on offenders–for example, include the actual earmarks in your post along with the name of the sponsor. Unfortunately, ear-marking has become so common it is questionable whether the members even consider it something of which to be ashamed.