WASHINGTON — Arkansas Republican U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford, who took a “no pork pledge” as a candidate, said Friday that budget earmarks, often derided as “pork-barrel spending,” should make a comeback.
In 2010, one of the Republican-led House of Representatives’ first accomplishments after members were sworn in was to place a two-year moratorium on “member directed” spending items — also known as “earmarks” — that funnel money to individual projects.
U.S. Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., is also signaling that he’s open to ending the ban.
Crawford, a member of the House Transportation Committee, said Friday that he gets calls from constituents all across the state requesting money for road projects.
However, the kibosh on earmarks has put him “behind the eight ball” in trying to get money to complete roads or repair washed-out bridges, he said. He called Interstate 555, which is “languishing” with only one mile left before its completion, a victim of the moratorium.
Crawford said rural states are at a disadvantage without earmarks, because large cities have, in some cases, up to a dozen congressmen advocating for projects that will help well-connected metropolitan areas.
“Constituents expect their congressman to bring back as many federal dollars as they can,” he said. “I’m only one voice in a very large geographic area. We’ve kind of hit a brick wall” without the ability to earmark projects.
Crawford conditioned his support of earmarks on Congress adopting rules that would require members to list earmark requests at least one week before a vote on them. He said he’s not worried that the practice will increase the federal deficit and described using earmarks as a way to ensure that spending decisions are left to members of Congress familiar with their districts instead of “Washington bureaucrats.”
As a candidate in the 2010 race, Crawford was one of many Republicans who signed a “No Pork Pledge,” promoted by Citizens Against Government Waste, a Washington group that advocates for a smaller federal budget.
In the pledge, Crawford affirmed that he would not request any “pork-barrel earmark.”
The group used several criteria to describe pork, including a project that was requested by only one member of Congress; a project not previously authorized by Congress; a project not requested by the president or competitively awarded; a project that is not the subject of congressional hearings; or a project that serves only a local or special interest.
Thomas Schatz, president of the group, said that until Crawford actually requests an earmark, he hasn’t broken the pledge.
“It’s not a step in the right direction,” he said.
Schatz said Republicans lost their majority in the House in 2006 in part because they passed spending bills containing a total of $26 billion in earmarks. That amount was a small part of the total discretionary budget that year of $997 billion, which was used to fund all government programs except for so-called entitlements, such as Medicare and Social Security.
If the moratorium were lifted, “it would be a repudiation of a lot of principles that helped elect a new majority to the House,” in 2010 when voters returned Republicans to power, Schatz said.
U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., suggested ending the earmark moratorium at a closed meeting of the House Republican conference in March. According to news reports and Crawford, Rogers suggested it as a way to help unstick large pieces of legislation, including a transportation bill that has been stalled in the House.
The Arkansas Democratic Party said Crawford has “flipflopped” on the issue.
Candace Martin, the party’s spokesman, said Crawford also reversed himself in March when he proposed raising taxes for upper-income earners on the condition that Congress pass a balanced-budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“This is another example to add to the list of broken promises,” she said. “Arkansans don’t know where he stands.”
The two Democrats in Arkansas’ congressional delegation, U.S. Rep. Mike Ross and U.S. Sen. Mark Pryor, do not support the temporary earmark ban. The remaining members of Arkansas delegation, U.S. Sen. John Boozman and U.S. Rep. Tim Griffin, both Republicans, support the ban.
In January, the Senate followed the House and placed a two-year moratorium on earmarks.
Pryor said Senate rules put in place before the moratorium ensured that all requested earmarks were placed on a searchable database at least 48 hours before a vote.
Cutting out earmarks, he said, “shifts a lot of power to President [Barack] Obama,” in deciding where to spend federal dollars.
Pryor agreed with Crawford that an “inside the Beltway” mentality means that without earmarks, more money goes to urban areas.
In 2010, before the moratorium, he said Arkansas received $615 million in earmarks. During the current fiscal year, the Obama administration directed $409 million to individual projects in the state.
Womack, a member of the House Appropriations Committee — the panel that writes spending bills that historically included loads of earmarks — was unavailable to comment.
As a freshman, Womack favored the moratorium when the House passed it in January of 2010 because the process had been “abused,” said J.R. Davis, his spokesman.
But Womack could favor a return of earmarks as long as there are rules that make earmarking an open process that requires a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether the project makes economic sense and require any earmark to be related to the underlying bill it’s attached to.
“He’s open to the idea,” Davis said.
Davis said deepening the Arkansas River shipping channel and completing Interstate 49 remain stalled because of the rule.
“Congress has to have the ability to put money toward those crucial projects,” Davis said.
Griffin doesn’t want to revive earmarks. With earmarks, he said, committee chairmen could force “bad ideas” through because of their seniority, instead of deciding on projects based on their merit.
He said using earmarks as “sweeteners” on large bills results in bad legislation.
“I want to see legislation that people want to vote for because it’s good legislation, not because they got something for back home,” he said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 04/08/2012