The Lie About Earmarks

John McCain is furious that the Senate shot down his proposal to have a one-year moratorium on spending earmarks. The Senate blocked the proposal by a vote of 71-29 on Thursday. McCain is not a fiscal conservative in any sense of the word; thus, he attacks earmarks as some kind of financial plague that is bankrupting our country.

The truth of the matter is earmarks are merely a way to distribute money that has already been approved for spending. The Congressional Research Service defines earmarks (PDF), informally, as "provisions associated with legislation (appropriations or general legislation) that specify certain congressional spending priorities."

Even if earmarks represent an increase in spending, the total for the latest budget equals a grand total of $14.8 billion. That is out of a $3.1 trillion budget. Will 0.4% of the latest budget really bring financial ruin? For some reason I think the $9.5 trillion of national debt or the inflationary policies of the Federal Reserve pose a greater threat to our economy than Congressional earmarking.

But if he wants to make an issue of negligible spending, John "Open Borders" McCain should look into the proposed United States/Mexico Totalization Agreement. This plan will give Social Security benefits to Mexican citizens who work in the United States as little as a few months. The low-end cost estimates (i.e. government figures) project it will cost $525 million over the first five years. Of course, that wouldn't fit into McCain's agenda of loose borders and wild spending.

I wish McCain would stop pretending to be fiscally responsible. He is just another tax-and-spend Republican in the mold of George W. Bush, who was the biggest spender since LBJ and his Great Society. I also wish he, and all his Beltway buddies would stop playing these stupid games with earmarks and tackle the real financial crises we are facing. Alas, I doubt McCain will suddenly become a voting-clone of Ron Paul.