I’m falling all over you like a bad jacket


Skid Marks – Possum Dixon (from the lovely and unfortunately forgotten Star Maps)

So it looks like the Republicans have got the votes together to ensure a bipartisan-ish restriction on earmarks.  What ought we think about this?

Well, earmarks are just so insignificant (and do not themselves appropriate ANY money, remember) that treating this as a budgetary matter is pretty silly.  That said, Matt Yglesias argues that we should still be happy they’re getting restricted:

But all that said, any kind of sensibly operationalized ban on earmarks really will, in a small way, be a good thing. Since members of congress are elected to represent specific geographical constituencies, it’s inevitable that parochial interests will be overrepresented in the legislative process relative to national interests. Any procedural rule that leans against that tendency is, in my view, a good thing. It’s good not because representation of local interests is a bad thing per se, but simply because our political system is very heavily weighted in that direction anyway.

There’s some truth to that, but I also worry that it puts us on the wrong track for actually thinking about the nature of this problem.   The question is not whether we can moderately restrict the parochialization of politics, it’s whether this particular means of restricting it is that useful.  There’s two reasons to think it’s not.

First, the struggle over earmarks is as much a separation of powers battle as anything else.  The budget is a strange enterprise, balanced in many ways between executive and legislative power.  While Congress has the power of the purse and must ultimately authorize and appropriate the funds, the executive is charged with setting out the budget AND with implementing it.  Which means in practical terms Congress often can only set general policy but not ensure the actual implementation matches their idea.  Earmarks are one tool Congress has to restrain executive prerogative about this part of the budgeting.  And all things equal, I’m in favor of the legislative side retaining power vis a vis the executive.

Second, the even more significant role that earmarks is to facilitate log-rolling.  The wheels of Congress turn extremely slowly, and it’s incredibly hard to generate coalitions to get things done.  Earmarks are a modestly powerful tool for facilitating that.  You want Congresswoman X on your side on a vote?  Well, she’s concerned that she’ll take a small hit with the voters back home if she sticks her head out on this.  Solution: give her an earmark so that the small hit that she takes for the vote is overwhelmed by the very specific benefit she can point to.

This thesis, compelling argued by Douglas Arnold in The Logic of Congressional Action, is grounded in the sense that small but mobilized publics may exert a lot more influence on Congress than inchoate majorities.  Which means that lawmakers may be compelled to work together for the general interest as long as they can deliver perceptible, traceable benefits to their constituents. Earmarks are a great example of this.  They permit 218 people who agree in vague terms to actually all vote for a specific bill containing stuff they wouldn’t personally support otherwise.  It’s a positive-sum trade because each side gets more out of the deal than they put in.  Public policy in general sacrifices a vanishingly small percentage of the budget in order to get broad compromise on important issues.  And individual congresspeople sacrifice a sliver of general credibility for the benefit of a very specific gain that will be more significant to their personal re-election chances.

The other factor going on here, from a liberal’s perspective, is the pure politics of the matter.  If the Republican Congressional strategy is basically to vote as a bloc against anything Obama supports in the hopes of denying him ‘bipartisan’ credibility, then this cuts against that goal.  So maybe the optics of Obama being able to stand together with DeMint, et al. in the interests of good governance will be good for him–and thus the Democrats.  It’s hard to quantify that value, but maybe it’s important enough to care about.

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