| I've been pondering McCain's outrageous perdifity in choosing the Governor of the most earmarked state as his running mate and then making Congressional earmark reform a major campaign issue.
We know McCain discovered he was a reformer after nearly losing his seat to the Keating Five scandal, but what explains the general Republican enthusiasm for this topic? After all, earmarks went up dramatically in the Republican Congresses of 1994-2006. Tom Delay blames Bill Clinton:
Earmarks grew so much in the 1990s because of divided government. The Republican Congress was given a mandate to fund certain priorities -- missile defense, for instance -- that the Clinton administration had no intention of following.
Which naturally explains what happened to earmarks after Bush took the helm in 2001:
According to the Congressional Research Service there were 997 earmarks in the fiscal 2000 defense appropriation bill. The first defense bill signed by Mr. Bush, which funded the department for fiscal 2002, contained 1,409 earmarks, a 40 percent increase.
Right, well this post is not about Tom Delay being a disingenuous sociopath or why Politico.com felt it important to give an indicted man space to rewrite history. What it really tells us is that Republicans hate earmarks now because Democrats run Congress, and are likely to keep running it even if McCain ekes out a victory.
Earmarks Come in Presidential Flavour Too
From that American Progress piece:
As Barry Anderson, a former top official at the Office of Management and Budget under Presidents Carter, Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Clinton, told Jackie Calmes of the Wall Street Journal two years ago: "Presidents use earmarks as much as members of Congress 'to reward political supporters, campaign contributors and sometimes members of Congress' for votes on a presidential priority."
And that is what this is really about. Power. Bush and McCain hate earmarks because now Democrats are able to use them to bolster their own electoral chances, and because it reduces their ability to arm-twist Congress using executive earmarks as leverage. "Want the GSA to hire more staff in your state, Senator? Well, I'll need your vote on that Defense bill."
Which brings us back to Lorita Doan. The whole point of this "reform" is to ensure that McCain has all the wherewithal he needs to get his agenda passed (tax cuts, war, deregulation) through the 111th Congress. WaPo:
In a slide called "2008 House Targets: Top 20," the presentation named 20 Democrats the GOP will key on in 2008. Another slide, called "2008 House GOP Defense," had a list of Republicans the party wants to protect.
"I do not recollect this," she said. "I honestly and absolutely do not recollect this."
Doan also said she did not recall asking appointees what they could do to "help our candidates," as alleged in a letter to Doan from Waxman citing the multiple sources.
Now I know that Lorita Doan never passed the threshold to household name so it's not like Obama can easily use her to defang this part of the McCain campaign. This isn't a campaign strategy post, just an analysis of the underlying motives. If you were wondering how McCain could possibly govern facing a very bitter Democratic Congress after running this scorched earth campaign from the Trash Talk Express, I think this is how.
It also reminds me that the legitimacy of the Executive veto needs to come under more fire for being anti-democratic and infantilizing Congress while making the President into the sober adult.
If McCain is able to win office on a campaign of ending Congressional earmarks using his veto pen, it will represent a massive shift of yet more power to the Executive branch. Earmarks won't stop, they'll just be even less transparent. And the "Power of the Purse" will be ever more an anachronism. We're learning how Palin really operates and I would predict it would be her playing Cheney in this capacity, while McCain stays clean in either feigned or actual ignorance. |
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