ABC News, when referring to Governor Palin's claims about canceling the "Bridge to Nowhere" says this:
She repeats this claim now despite having been a vocal advocate for the project during her gubernatorial run -- before she was against it. And her state kept the funds allocated for the project, even after it was canceled.
Now either ABC does not understand the nature of earmarks, (aka Pork) or they are betting you don't. And since there is at least some chance you don't understand Pork and the problem it represents, I will lay out the facts so you can more critically understand the issue.
What is Pork? The Heritage Foundation has a good definition so we'll start with that:
Originally, lawmakers would fund government grant programs and then let federal and state agencies select individual grant recipients through a competitive application process or by formula. Now, Congress actually determines, within the legislation, who will receive government grants by “earmarking” money to specific recipients. Earmarks are also known as “pork projects” because they bring the bacon home to districts.
More appropriately known as budgetary earmarks, Pork is when a legislator designates a certain amount of an appropriation bill to a particular project. So what you have is Congress appropriating funds to a Federal agency or to a State using the normal legislative process, and then after the fact, a legislator comes in and takes a portion of that appropriation and "earmarks" it for a particular purpose without any legislative oversight. And often, it designates a particular contractor subverting the bid process. And what's worse; this can be done in secret, without the public or Congress knowing who requested (and got) the earmark.
So the fact that Governor Palin did not "give back" the money is a red herring. In this case, the money for Alaska was appropriated by Congress for road construction using a legitimate process. That part isn't pork. After the appropriation by Congress, Senator Stevens then "earmarked" some of those funds for the Bridge project. That's the pork part.
The Press-Register summarizes it nicely
Here are the keys to identifying pork: It comes from individual members of Congress (not from federal or state agencies), it isn't prioritized or awarded in a competitive process, and it's inserted in the budget without hearings or even a minute of debate.
Why is Pork bad? Pork isn't bad by itself. The process for designating pork is bad. And by bad I mean corrupting.
Clearly many good projects are funded by earmarks. It is often the case that State legislators know of companies within their districts that produce good and useful products that should come to the attention of national lawmakers. And there are good and useful research projects that should be funded specifically.
The problem comes when some company (or person) contributes to a candidate's election fund and then gets a pork barrel project in return. Like in the case of John Murtha:
In the massive 2008 military-spending bill now before Congress -- which could go to a House-Senate conference as soon as Thursday -- Mr. Murtha has steered more taxpayer funds to his congressional district than any other member....
A review by The Wall Street Journal of dozens of such contracts funded by Mr. Murtha's committee shows that many weren't sought by the military or federal agencies they were intended to benefit. Some were inefficient or mismanaged, according to interviews, public records and previously unpublished Pentagon audits. One Murtha-backed firm, ProLogic Inc., is under federal investigation for allegedly diverting public funds to develop commercial software, people close to the case say. The company denies wrongdoing and is in line to get millions of dollars more in the pending defense bill....
There's no evidence that Mr. Murtha personally profits from the hometown spending he rams through Congress. He ranked No. 333 in net worth among the 435 members of the House in a 2005 analysis by the nonprofit Center for Responsive Politics. But his campaign coffers have risen since he became chairman of the defense-spending panel. In the first nine months of this year, Mr. Murtha's campaign committees have reported contributions of more than $1.05 million.
Or in the case of Barak Obama
During his three fiscal years in the U.S. Senate, the Land of Lincolner has requested more than $740 million in earmarks for Illinois--including $1 million for an expansion of the University of Chicago Medical Center, where his wife Michelle is a vice president, $8 million for a military contracting firm owned by a top donor and $3.4 million for clients of Joe Biden's lobbyist son.
Now that's pork.
The Fix. What we need is earmark reform. I have no problem with earmarks per se, just they way they are done. Earmarks need to be voted on and the requestor needs to be listed in every single case.
Daylight on the process.
Something the Democrats promised to do when they took over Congress and which they have yet to accomplish.
And Senator Obama needs a voting record to match his rhetoric, something which, as of now, he does not have.
