Biden’s Call to End Earmarks Still Seems to Fall on Deaf Ears

During last week’s presidential debate in New Hampshire, Democratic Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware took another strong stand in support of public campaign financing. When the debate shifted to earmarks, Biden injected that the way to eliminate earmarks is to switch to a public campaign finance system. Biden argued that as long as there are massive contributions pouring into the system, there will be earmarks attached to bills.

Meanwhile, President Bush, in his bid to clamp down on the abuse of earmarking, has called for enacting line-item veto powers, but members of Congress have been reluctant to cede their stranglehold on the earmark market. Despite last year’s high-profile scandals involving lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham of California, the earmarking industry grew in Congress.Citizens Against Government Waste (CAGW) noted:

For fiscal 2006, lawmakers stuffed 9,963 projects into the 11 appropriations bills, a 29 percent decrease over last year’s total of 13,997. Despite the reduction in the number of earmarks, Congress pigged out at record levels with $29 billion in pork for 2006, or 6.2 percent more than last year’s total of $27.3 billion. In fact, the total cost of pork has increased by 29 percent since fiscal 2003. Total pork identified by CAGW since 1991 adds up to $241 billion.

By passing pork-laden appropriations bills and by not vetoing a single spending bill, Congress and the president of the United States have respectively failed the American taxpayer. The 375 projects, totaling $3.4 billion, in this year’s “Congressional Pig Book Summary” symbolize the most egregious and blatant examples of pork.

In an effort to hold members of Congress accountable for their votes, the citizens group has examined roll calls to determine which members are voting in the interest of taxpayers.

Ironically, Biden received a “hostile” rating of 17 percent, indicating he voted in favor of pork-barrel legislation in lieu of taxpayers’ best interests. Iowa’s Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin also received a hostile rating of 4 percent, which tied a few others for the worst. His Iowan counterpart, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, registered a “friendly” rating at 71 percent.

Whether or not there’s a direct correlation between the call for publicly financed campaigns and the eradication of earmark spending remains to be seen.

As far as public campaign financing goes, Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., introduced the “Fair Elections Now Act” (S.936) in March, which would let congressional candidates apply for public funding to run their campaigns. The bill, similar to Iowa’s VOICE bill, would fund candidates who demonstrate a basic level of support by raising “seed money” and then agreeing to limit their campaign spending to the amount allocated from public funds.

“Today, the amount of money spent in the top 10 competitive Senate races averages $34 million per campaign, double what it was just four years ago,” Durbin said. “It takes a mountain of money just to lose a Senate campaign. This is not sustainable.”

For years, Durbin has opposed public funding for campaigns because he did not think taxpayers should have to finance campaigns for candidates they opposed. But the latest fund-raising figures have led to a change of heart for Durbin.

Durbin has received support on the other side of the aisle from Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who helped draft the bill in hopes of curtailing the current runaway campaign finance system.

As of now, there are only three cosponsors of the Fair Elections Now Act, one of whom is Specter. The others are Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., and Biden’s presidential rival, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

The question now is will Biden sign on as a cosponsor as well?