So I recently read several stories on earmarks. Afterwards, I was left feeling that the media again does not do a good job reporting. I am not doing the typical anti-media criticism that the media is biased, etc. I am only suggesting here that I thought the media is supposed to cover basic questions like who, what, where, when, how, etc. in their reporting. It was not until I read a little bit more about earmarks that I realized that most reporting did not bother to cover the question of what is an earmark? I assume what should be a starting point.

I am not defending earmarks. I am not pro-earmarks. I also understand that the very answer to the question of what is an earmark is not 100% without debate, but most will cite some form of definition like an earmark are “allocations of revenue in a bill that are directed to a specific project or recipient typically in a legislator’s home state or district” or “as congressional funds whose recipient has been specified without adherence to the competitive allocation process.”

What does this mean? It can happen in two ways: hard or soft. Hard meaning that the spending bill has a line inserted explicitly into it by a Congressman that a specified amount of money already being sent to an executive agency must be spent on a specific project. Soft means that in discussion of the bill a Congressman put it into the minutes that a certain amount of the money already being sent to an executive agency should be sent on a specific project.

Huh? What does this mean? It means that eliminating earmarks (which only consist of 1-2% of the budget) would not reduce spending directly. It only means that the money already being sent to a particular agency will not have to go to a specific project.

So…now…all of the discussion of earmarks now feels like a complete distraction full of hipocrits on both sides…