The Congressional Earmarks Ban

A Ten Year History

Preface:

Upon graduating from my undergraduate school with my degree in history a few years ago, I came across a book that led me down the rabbit hole of wanting to learn more about Congress. That book was “Legislating in the Dark: Information and Power in the House of Representatives,” and is still the number one book I recommend to people who want to get started in their journey to learn about the legislative process in Congress. For intermediates, I suggest reading pretty much any book by Frances E. Lee, with my two particular favorites being “Insecure Majorities: Congress and the Perpetual Campaign,” and “Beyond Ideology: Power, Principles, and Partisanship in the US Senate.” Reading books in my spare time was how I came to learn about the legislative process, and the history of Congress altogether.

There’s actually a subfield of political science called American political development, whereas it focuses on the historic development in politics in the United States. I never knew the correct term for this, let alone the subfield’s existence until it was recently brought to my attention by a follower of mine who happens to be a professor of political science out in Washington State. Kudos!

After finishing my previous article on how Congress today acts similar to the Gilded Age, I wanted to write about a topic I knew very little about. I never understood all the hype behind it, but I knew this played some sort of significant role in the legislative body: Congressional earmarks. But it wasn’t just the introductory 101 basics of earmarks that I was curious about, rather, I wanted to understand why there was a ban on them, and how come hardly anyone has written about the effects from the ban 10 years later.

As one usually does when they’re trying to figure out a question about a topic, I landed myself in the midst of Google search results on the earmarks ban. But to my dismay, the stories that popped up only covered the current political climate of the day, with hardly any academic material on the historical development in politics on earmarks.

Not wanting to go too far back, I started my search beginning in 2010 because I vividly recall how big of a deal the rise of the Tea Party movement was at the time, and how many politicians and conservative talk show hosts were vocal about cutting spending, and reducing the deficit. At the current date of this writing, searching for earmark columns from Politico’s site, as per one example, I found it odd that the first two pages of search results reflected publications that were written from 2014-2021, while pages 3 through 15 lead me reading columns that were written between 2010-2013. The latter, was helpful in historical context because it showed how politically significant the conservative base was. However, to some mild disappointment, I wish more was written about the earmarks ban during the late Obama years, and into the Trump years.

After completing this 3-month personal project, I was astonished to learn how banning something that was considered to be less than 1% of the total federal deficit spending, led to one of the most successful-yet-controversial political messaging tactics of the conservative era throughout the 2010s. But I digress.

The objective of this piece is to educate what earmarks are, why they became banned, and who favored the ban. In addition, it will also discuss the financial, political, and intra-party struggles over the ban in the last decade.

For the record, I’m not a graduate student of politics, a law student, a news journalist, a congressional staffer, nor a lobbyist. I don’t even live near the DC Beltway for that matter. I’ve always been captivated by history because not only do I enjoy conducting research, and storytelling, but there’s something unique about understanding why such events occurred on a micro level, while looking through the change of perspectives over time on a macro level.

Though my piece of work may be a very small needle in the huge haystack of other various publications written about Congress, I hope this is a first step to have the topic on the history of the congressional earmarks ban to be brought into serious consideration.

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“In the old House of Representatives, which is now Statuary Hall, the members of the House looked up at two statues, which are still there. One is a figure representing liberty, and the other, behind them was Clio, the muse of history, keeping note of their actions and holding the clock - a very important idea, that what they did there didn’t just matter at the moment, but for time to come, that they would be measured by history, and that they had to live up to standards that would be set by historical precedent. Well, you know what they now look up to in the present day House of Representatives - the television cameras.”

- David McCullough, from America: The Congress (1988)

[Clio, the muse of history, via: Architect of the Capitol]

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Congressional earmarks are a political term that refers to taxpayer money going towards federal funding projects. Many members of Congress commonly used earmarks to allocate funds to go towards projects of one’s congressional district. In addition to raising funds for their subsequent political campaigns, members of Congress also have to make sure constituents in their districts get the necessary funding needed to go towards job creation, and much more.

At the beginning of 2010, House Republicans amid the growing Tea Party movement were destined to fight against increased government spending. Representative Mike Pence (R-IN) said Americans know that federal spending was out of control, and congressional earmarks were the, “emblematic of everything that’s wrong.”¹

At the time, there were discussions between Republicans and Democrats in congress trying to figure out how to implement a ban on earmarks. House Republicans were eager to ban earmarks as long as they were banned in spending bills over the next year. The Republican party was destined to fight against so called wasteful pork-barrel spending, and send a political conservative message for fiscal responsibility. Meanwhile, House Democrats wanted to ban earmarks that were directed towards for-profit companies. Amongst key leaders on several House committees, they said in a statement that the ban would not only apply towards government spending bills, but it was likely to be a “long-term proposition.”²

In 2010, drafting of spending bills for the 2011 fiscal year, there were three bills developed by the House Appropriations committee that included $740 million in earmarks. According to the non-partisan Taxpayers for Common Sense group, this was reduced by 40% compared to the 2010 fiscal year, where it included $1.27 billion in earmarks to fund the departments of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Homeland Security, and the VA. With a grand total of $10B for all spending bills in 2010.³

Republicans argued for cutting spending to reduce the federal deficit, and in doing so strengthened their fiscal conservative messaging efforts. Since the House Republican party conference agreed on a moratorium on earmarks, Rep. John Kingston (R-GA) said his party, “can answer the question in 10 seconds,” and that the reduction to earmarks made his party “a lot more credible on financial restraint.” Despite Republicans calling out for less government spending, per prior members of the House Appropriations committee, limiting the number of earmarks gave the party an argument that by cutting earmarks, they were also cutting spending to reduce the deficit, which at the time was expected to reach $1.5 trillion that year, with an overall national debt of $13 trillion.⁴

Because Democrats wanted to reduce earmarks on all for-profits by 4% in the three appropriations bills that were mentioned earlier, much of it was to be implemented in defense spending. They also instituted a permanent earmarks ban on for-profit companies “in order to limit the abuse of taxpayer funds.”⁵

Despite what some politicians may say about how outrageous earmarks spending was, earmarks generally made up less than 1% of the total federal deficit spending. 

Representative Jim Morna (D-VA) who was a senior Democratic appropriator, said there wasn’t a lot of money to be saved just by reducing earmarks, which he continued, “but I guess it satisfied the public thirst to beat up on the Congress.”⁶ Despite the incredibly low effect earmarks had in deficit spending, members were willing to find some sort of an earmarks ban with bipartisan support. Representatives Jeff Flake (R-AZ), and Senators Claire McCaskill (D-MO), and John McCain (R-AZ) who were renowned for being vocal against earmarks at the time, believed that earmarks were wasteful and corrupt.⁷

While Republicans won the majority of newly elected House seats, with the help of the Tea Party movement in the 2010 midterm elections, House Republican members went ahead to adopt an earmark ban a couple months before the new 112th congressional session was set to begin. An enthusiastic John Boehner (R-OH), who was set to become the next Speaker of the House, an upgrade from his old post as House Minority Leader, said in a statement, "This earmark ban shows the American people we are listening and we are dead serious about ending business as usual in Washington.”⁸ Around that time, earmarks generally accounted for $15 billion in federal spending each year but have grown over time to be a political symbol for wasteful spending. Republican politicians, and conservative pundits had gained ground they needed to attain to show their supporters that they were getting serious on setting an agenda on reducing the deficit, and fiscal discipline.⁹ Once again, despite the outrage at the time on how wasteful earmarks spending was, earmarks made up less than 1% of the total federal deficit spending. 

In response, President Obama publicly acknowledged his opposition to wasteful earmarks spending, but believed some earmarks could be useful in some capacity. Republican House leadership said in a statement, "We hope President Obama will follow through on his support for an earmark ban by pressing Democratic leaders to join House and Senate Republicans in taking this critical step to restore public trust." Upon further calls by CBS News, President Obama changed his stance, by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs who stated that President Obama would support the permanent ban on all congressional earmarks.¹⁰

Obama would continue to double-down by his remarks even further in a weekly radio address stating: 

“I agree with those Republican and Democratic Members of Congress who’ve recently said that in these challenging days, we can’t afford what are called earmarks… We can’t afford ‘Bridges to Nowhere’ like the one that was planned a few years back in Alaska. Earmarks like these represent a relatively small part of overall federal spending. But when it comes to signaling our commitment to fiscal responsibility, addressing them would have an important impact.”¹¹

Although not mentioning the effort by Republicans to enact an earmark moratorium, Obama also said, “Today, we have a chance to go further. We have a chance to not only shine a light on a bad Washington habit that wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, but take a step towards restoring public trust.”¹²

With Republicans in sight to take back majority control of the House in the next term, they utilized a transition team to make sure things ran smoothly. One of the members who was head of the Republican Transition Team was Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) said in the party’s weekly message, aimed to change the DC culture, “Too often, accountability counts for nothing, and transparency for even less… That’s why our leader, John Boehner, has pledged to run the House of Representatives differently than it’s been run in the past - by both parties.”¹³ 

Walden also mentioned that the Republican transition team included new freshmen members that wanted to change Congress. One of which was the installation of cameras in the House Rules Committee hearing room, and other added measures to assure an open and transparent legislative process. Walden would later say, “We’ve got the people’s business to do, and the people have the right to watch that business being done.”¹⁴ As transparent as that might seem to hit political messaging points, the reality of the situation draws to be limited in scope. Henceforth, most people, much less the average Joe, tend to care to watch C-SPAN for a boring House Rules meeting.

As the new year entered 2011, so did a new term in Congress for the 112th congressional session. In negotiations between House Republicans leaders and President Obama, it was the Senate Democrats that would eventually cave into the demands for banning earmarks. 

This resulted in a huge loss for Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV) despite his friendly ties to the president, and a blow to Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-HI) who was also a proponent of earmarks. Inouye announced that his panel will ban earmarks from any bills in the next two years, a move that would effectively block senators from sending money to their home states in spending bills.¹⁵

Sen. Inouye included in his statement, “The president has stated unequivocally that he will veto any legislation containing earmarks, and the House will not pass any bills that contain them. Given the reality before us, it makes no sense to accept earmark requests that have no chance of being enacted into law.”¹⁶ 

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), chairwoman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee at the time, agreed that earmarks are important, but noted that the political reality facing Congress has changed. “We’re being pragmatic about this year, but we also believe strongly that, as members of Congress, we have to represent our states and fight for them.”¹⁷

The shift of Republicans gaining back the House signified the public’s view towards a change in the pendulum shift in Congress, and financial reforms were to be a priority, especially in Washington DC. Although House Republicans won back the majority control in the new legislative session after the 2010 midterm elections, Senate Republicans in the chamber across from their House colleagues still had issues on earmark reform. 

Senators that were backed by the Tea Party, such as Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), told the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and other Republican colleagues in their conference to convince them to take off earmarks, and put forward a two year moratorium. 

McConnell would give a floor speech by saying, “I know the good that has come from the projects I have helped support throughout my state. I don’t apologize for them, but there is simply no doubt that the abuse of this practice has caused Americans to view it as a symbol of the waste and the out-of-control spending that every Republican in Washington is determined to fight.”¹⁸

Impressed with Senator Inouye’s remarks going forward with the earmark ban, Brian Baker, president of the non-partisan interest group Taxpayers Against Earmarks, noted that he supported Sen. Inouye’s announcement, “An earmark ban is only the first step to reigning in the massive federal debt, out-of-control federal spending and the broken budgeting process in Washington. We will be watching to make sure that our elected officials don’t break their promises to the American people.”¹⁹

However, since Democrats held the majority in the Senate, Sen. Inouye stressed in his earlier statement that he urged the Senate to look into the earmark process that is both transparent and fair that would protect the rights of legislators to answer the petitions they encounter of their constituents, regardless if it were to be coming from the president or a Washington federal bureaucrat.²⁰

With the midterm races out of the way, the new focus was on the presidential race for a Republican to run against President Obama in the 2012 November election. 

After a series of debates amongst the 2012 Republican presidential candidates, one example stands out in the interest of earmarks between former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA); and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. During the Arizona debate on February 22, 2012, both candidates for the presidential nomination confronted each other over the topic of congressional earmarks.

Santorum on the stage said, “Congress has a role to play when it comes to appropriating money,” later criticized Romney for taking advantage of earmarks when he requested funds for the 2002 Olympic Games in Utah. “I didn’t follow all of that,” Romney replied, while arguing with Santorum portraying how the earmarks process was broken due to excessive spending. Romney defended his stance on requesting the Olympic funds, and quickly jabbed at Santorum by saying, “While I was fighting to save the Olympics, you were fighting to save the ‘Bridge to Nowhere.”²¹

Santorum shouted back, “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” with “What you just suggested as to how earmarks should work in the future is exactly how they worked in the past. So I suspect you would have supported earmarks if you were in the United States Senate.”²²

A few months later, the GOP still struggled with earmark legislation because on one hand it was easy to despise Washington DC, but they needed it at the same time. In a May 2012 article from Politico, Kate Nocera, and Adam Snider described earmarks as creating tensions between staunch conservative freshman members who wanted less government, and the typical political pressure a congressperson gets to make sure they receive federal dollars on projects to districts back home.

There were three Republican members who wanted to see projects go to their home districts: Rep. Michael Grimm of New York for example, who wanted to revamp the Bayonne Bridge that connected commuters from the north-most point of Staten Island into New Jersey. Another New York colleague Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle, suggested that not everything the federal government does is bad, and that the government does have a “real and legitimate impact on the economic health of a region by supporting improvements to local infrastructure,” pushing for the Syracuse Connective Corridor road project. The last of the three was Florida Rep. Allen West who wanted to push a $21 million grant that would help make a new runway at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.²³

With a large majority of freshmen wanting to become more district-oriented, Rep. Jimmy Duncan (R-TN) said, “When we went around to each of the freshmen to ask them what their main concerns were, a lot of those were more specific things to their district or specific highways or different things like that.”²⁴ 

When members ran on their campaigns to get rid of spending for special projects, it turned out to be that they were shooting themselves in the foot all along. Because without the necessary funds, projects in their home district they advocated for, were either delayed or didn’t start at all. Overtime, lawmakers were caught in a pickle where they privately would seek out federal funds to go aid projects in their districts, yet publicly cry out that earmarks are a problem to the issue of federal wasteful spending, despite earmarks were considered to be less than 1% of the total federal deficit spending

Other members such as Rep. Frank Guinta (R-NH) believed that it’s not a congressperson’s job to bring money to their districts, because the shift should be changed to focus on the nation by getting the economy back on track and “put ourselves in financial and fiscal control again.”²⁵

The critical issue of not having earmarks into legislation, some argued at the time, was that it made the legislative process more difficult to pass a bill altogether. Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC) said, “With an abundance of earmarks, more people are happy, but the American people get a bigger bill. The truth is while lawmaking is more painful and slower-moving without earmarks, it’s probably in the best interest of our country for the long term.”²⁶

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The famous ‘Bridge to Nowhere’ started out as a proposal by Alaska Rep. Don Young around 2005 to allow funding from Congress to go towards train infrastructure at a price of $62 million. This bridge was an overpass that connected to the Alaskan island of Gravina that had a town population of about fifty people.

Young said that Alaska should be no different than any of the other lower 48 states, “There is no reason why the Alaska Railroad should be treated differently than other American passenger rail systems - and that is exactly why this provision is so important."²⁷

Many have criticized Young’s proposal since many people in the Last Frontier state hardly, if ever, commuted by rail on a daily basis at an annual rate just under 415,000 compared to New York City at over 1.5 billion annually. Because most public inner-city transit revolves around a crowded city and its suburbs, the Alaskan transit system, by rail specifically, runs over 650 miles that carry both tourists and cargo.²⁸

Young was able to successfully craft an earmark by putting it under a Technical Amendments subsection, whereby changing a key sentence, railroads were to be eligible for mass transit funding based on the number of track miles rather than the number of passengers. By doing this act, Young was able to help his railroad projects rake in over millions of dollars over the years. 

But not everything lasts forever. As Congress was drawing closer to making a new transportation deal in 2012, the Senate voted to get rid of Young’s precious earmark that was estimated to be 3/4ths of the entire funding for Alaska’s transit, but in the end, came to a concession from the Senate instead. The new plan instead focused on providing funding for Alaskan rail within the range of Anchorage, and other small portions in the state.

It could be possible that Young helped save the Alaskan railway, but some critics believe he got away to continue on his pork spending routine. As Young said, “Alaska is sparsely populated and does not have commuter service, but that is no reason to treat it disparately - which is what some are fighting to do. On top of meeting all eligibility criteria to receive FTA funding, the Alaska Railroad is in some cases the only passenger service available in parts of Alaska."²⁹

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Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), the former House Speaker (2015-2019), came into the spotlight for wanting to have a new transit center built in his district, and served for more than a decade in Congress, he knew his way to get what he needed. As a rising star in his House Republican conference, who would come to be nominated as a vice-presidential candidate, would find ways to make sure his district got the funding it needed. 

But with the glory that comes with being in a person of high party power position, the issue to cut federal deficit spending may have made his dreams a bit short. When his office was contacted, his spokesperson Brendan Buck at the time, was quick to respond that Ryan tried to work on a bipartisan solution to tackle the federal deficit issue that President Obama massively increased. And that by campaigning to get rid of earmarks years ago, Ryan was the person to change how Washington works, not Obama.³⁰

However, Ryan’s congressional past portrays a different story. In early 2003 Ryan was a co-sponsor to a $20 million bill that went towards funding research into fighting chronic wasting disease in animals such as deer and elk, of which Ryan’s state of Wisconsin would receive $1.75 million. Other earmarks he previously worked on were in 2000, where Ryan was able to successfully fund Rock County Airport $1.5 million to establish a new runway based on a new transportation bill, and a few years later acquired over $12 million to renovate three road projects in Kenosha in 2005.³¹

Despite the fact that he pledged to not seek earmarks in 2008, by the first year of Obama’s presidency of 2009, Ryan wrote to Energy Secretary Steven Chu, advocating on behalf of the corporation of the Wisconsin Conservation Corp., for they wanted to use money that would cut down on energy costs, and emissions caused by greenhouse gas. Green energy jobs were a big priority in the early years of the Obama administration. So much so that Ryan was glad to hear that his project was given $20 million in hopes that the funds would go towards creating more green jobs.³²

The duty of being a member of congress is making sure that one’s district gets the federal funding it needs. No matter if a member of Congress was a rank-and-file member, or a party caucus leader, earmarks were a way to provide communities the beneficial funding they needed.

Shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday in November 2012, Republicans in both chambers of Congress wanted to continue the earmark ban into the upcoming 113th congressional session beginning in January 2013, proposed by Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA). 

“Right now in the current composition in the Republican Conference in the Senate, there is a pretty substantial majority that believes that we should continue this moratorium,” the senator said. Although Democrats still held the Senate, Toomey noted that Democrats did the right thing the last time, saved Americans money, and helped discipline the topic of federal spending.³³ 

Prominent Senator Lisa Murkouski (R-AK), said in her regards to the ban on earmarks, “We have taken an approach that I think is designed to be more of a public relations thing. You got to convince the public we’re cutting the budget. We are not cutting spending. We’re letting the executive branch determine the priorities.”³⁴

Reflecting on her quote, Murkowski had a solid approach in her point that the ban on earmarks grown to become a public relations issue, since it was a scapegoat for politicians to make a campaign message that they were cutting the federal budget. Another reminder as previously noted, earmarks have been less than one percent of the federal budget. 

It’s not solely Republicans that have campaigned on the ban of earmarks. As mentioned before with Obama’s push in 2011 to not sign laws that included earmarks, prominent Senator Claire McCaskill opposed earmarks, and had tried working with Senator Toomey to pass a ban on legislative earmarks. 

In a statement, McCaskill said, “When I got to the Senate six years ago, the abuse of taxpayer dollars through earmarks was rampant. We’ve come a long way, and I look forward to holding the line against reviving this deeply problematic practice. I plan to keep pushing for stronger accountability by permanently banning earmarks altogether.”³⁵ Because the earmark ban had been focused among inter-party rules, there was no successful passage legislatively of an earmark ban. A proposed ban sponsored by Toomey and McCaskill was voted down 40-59 by the Senate in the previous February.³⁶

One of the most famous Tea Party members in the conservative movement was congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN). According to Politico in 2013, she was working on a project in her district to expand interstate 94, hoping to secure $25 million. Bill Shuster (R-PA) was the House Transportation Committee Chairman for which Bachmann had to talk about the project.³⁷ 

In 2010 when Congress began to consider the possibility of a moratorium on earmarks, Bachmann argued that local transportation projects shouldn't be considered to be earmarks, and that the word itself should be redefined. She told the Star Tribune at the time, “Advocating for transportation projects for one's district in my mind does not equate to an earmark.”³⁸ But upon being questioned about the I-94 plan, Bachmann gave no clear answer whether or not the project should be exempted from the moratorium, but added, “That’s another conversation for another day.”³⁹

Erich Zimmermann, a policy analyst at the time for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group, said about Bachmann’s stance, “Most of this is just posturing. I think she full on knows it’s hard to get money specified for the project. I don’t think it’s unique to her… most people aren't paying attention to the earmark rules in Congress.”⁴⁰ 

[*Queue Rep. Walden’s previous remarks on the installation of cameras in the House Rules Committee hearing room, because it seems people still aren’t interested in learning about the rules years later.*] 

As the country moved on into the midst of President Obama’s second presidential term, and the lingering 2014 midterm elections approaching in November, Republicans in Congress continued to have divisions amongst party members on the approach of earmarks. 

Senator Murkowski believed that the banned earmarks were politically popular, not because it was any sort of good policy, rather it was because it created a political game where the spending was in the hands of the executive branch’s administrative agencies. In a firing remark she said, “When you basically say: ‘Agencies, you set the priorities,’ I’m not down with that. And I don’t think that a lot of my colleagues are, but I think they’ve trapped themselves into a box and they can’t figure out how to get out. Because they have convinced their constituents that we are totally out of control.”⁴¹

Murkowski’s analogy was summed up perfectly, because the Republican members of congress who have been campaigning on the ban of earmarks, let alone the president’s approval to an extent, have put themselves in a trap that they have a difficult time getting out of. And that difficult part was making sure members get funding for their districts. 

Senator Roy Blunt (R-MO) went further by saying, “It’s a legitimate constitutional question as to who is supposed to direct the way the money is spent; is it the Congress or the president? We need to figure out some way that the Congress can direct the way the money is spent in the country without the people we work for feeling concerned about the way the process works.”⁴²

His remark was a similar claim to Murkoswki’s because with the ban on earmarks created the mantra of what government branch is funding projects, whether it’s through Congress in the process of appropriations, or the agencies of the Obama administration. With the 2014 midterm election looming, Republican leadership had no desire to uplift the earmark ban whether or not they expand their control into the Senate the following year. 

Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) who has been a proponent of the earmark ban, and was on the pathway towards retirement by the end, wrote in the Wall Street Journal, “The American public think it’s a sick way to a run a business, to have to bribe somebody to get something done and politicians use it to look good at home. Even if it may not be in the best interest of the country, it’s in the best interest of the politician. And it’s the wrong way to spend the money.”⁴³

In alliance to Coburn was Senator John McCain (R-AZ) who strongly opposed earmarks, viewing it as another system of corruption, personally added, “It’ll be over my dead political body that we return to earmarks in any shape or form.”⁴⁴ 

Republicans have been looking to board the anti-earmark train, since earmarks in general have been polled poorly, and want to capitalize campaign opportunities on Reid for his passion for earmarks. Yet despite some Republican colleagues wanting to continue earmarks, there were murky waters leading up deeper into the election season.⁴⁵

In an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo, House Speaker John Boehner said, “I’ve been here for 24 years and I’ve never, ever once asked for an earmark or got one. Not once. I started this effort in 2006 to get rid of earmarks. We are not going back to the nonsense that went on before.” To which he later followed up saying, “There’s always a movement to bring back earmarks. As long as I’m here, no earmarks.”⁴⁶

Boehner campaigned hard tooth-and-nail against earmarks while serving in the early years of his Speakership, for he and the party leadership needed to find someone who could help tighten the ropes, per se. Boehner set his eyes across state lines into Kentucky to find the guy named Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY).

Boehner had a tight leash on Rogers, who was Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee that enforces the earmark ban. Rogers, who viewed such a ban would hurt the appropriations process, was once in favor of earmarks. But when eyeing on the position of Appropriations Committee Chair in 2010 after the Tea Party wave, he would have to follow the new conservative status quo of cutting wasteful government spending, even if that meant getting rid of earmarks. As writer Elaine Povich perfectly summed it up together, “he would have to go from eating the bacon to sipping the tea.”⁴⁷

Jason Linkins who was a writer for the Huffington Post wrote an op-ed voicing to bring back earmarks in Congress. He pitched by stating that the mantra of getting rid of earmarks in the first place seemed to be a good idea, but later down the line, that idea was “a really terrible and stupid idea, and we need to un-reform earmark reform just as hard as we can.”⁴⁸

For context he adds Thomas Edsall, a columnist at the New York Times who wrote an remarkable opinion piece about congressional earmarks:

“The ban on earmarks, adopted after the Republican takeover of the House in 2010, has tied the hands of congressional leaders. Still, earmarks, despised by reformers on the left and right, served an essential political purpose. The House and Senate leadership and ranking committee members used earmarks to persuade their reluctant colleagues to vote for or against key bills; they used them as a tool to forge compromise and as a carrot to produce majorities.”⁴⁹ 

But it’s what Edsall wrote next that hit the hammer on the nail’s head, “The prohibition on earmarks has done nothing to restore respect for Congress. Just the opposite: It has contributed to legislative gridlock and increased the difficulty of winning enactment of tax and immigration reform.”⁵⁰

For all the hype on banning earmarks, politicians (eg. earlier quote from Tim Scott) who were in favor of the ban, were also eager to claim a trade off situation, whereas a slower legislative body is the best interest for the country in the long term, may not have seen the horizon that lied ahead that included more partisan gridlock, and little optimistic restoration about bringing congress back as a respectable branch of government due to continuous low approval ratings. 

Linkins follows up with an Eat the Press interview from former congressional staffer Erikka Knuti. When questioned about the earmark ban, she opened-up by saying she didn’t think Congress had any idea what it was doing, “I think we thought it would just be the difference between ‘bringing home the bacon’ to ‘bringing home the turkey bacon.’ I think we thought we’d just end up with ‘Earmark Lite.’ I don’t think we knew that we were going to remove all of the grease to the legislative wheels whatsoever. Now there’s no incentive to compromise.”⁵¹

Knuti further expressed her thoughts on the powers of the legislative branch by stating that the duty of Congress is to tax and spend. “Their purpose isn’t necessarily pure policy. It is fundamentally to spend money, the people’s money. And earmarks were a way of dividing up the pie, so when you came home, you used to have to say, “This is what I did for you.”⁵²

As Speaker Boehner was set to leave Congress in late-2015, talks still continued about lifting the earmark ban, despite possible harsh objections from fiscal hawk conservative members. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) wrote to Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA), Chairman of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, proclaiming that the decision to ban earmarks has led to continuous gridlock in the legislative branch: "Congress used the practice of congressionally directed spending for negotiating purposes... and keep the legislative process moving."⁵³

Similar to what was previously said by Senators Murkowski and Blunt in 2014, Cleaver made mirroring remarks to those who found that the power of the purse seemed to have shifted authority away from congress and into the executive branch, "By ending the practice of congressionally directed spending, we have not reduced the size of the federal budget 'pie’. We have just given the whole pie to the executive branch."⁵⁴

In a Roll Call opinion piece by Patricia Murphy, she opened her piece by saying that Congress should bring back earmarks, even if that meant political suicide to suggest it. The ban of earmarks may have been a good idea at the start since some people in politics took advantage of bribes, such as former ​​Rep. Duke Cunningham, who in 2005 pleaded guilty to bribing over $2 million, sold earmarks to a campaign donor. Not to mention the infamous lobbyist Jack Abramoff who gave many paid-for gifts to many people who worked in DC politics, for which he was later found guilty in 2006 for fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy.⁵⁵

Murphy made an interesting observation - when earmarks were off the books, an unintended consequence of such action led to recurring government shutdowns. At the same time, congressional leadership stopped passing appropriation bills individually, and went another route by cramming a federal government fiscal package into an 11th hour omnibus spending bill. These bills would be approved in a rush by Congress near the end of the year.

Murphy expressed in further detail: 

“Instead of making the budget process more transparent, it became less transparent. Instead of reducing spending and ending earmarks, the congressional earmark ban simply moved the individual spending decisions away from Congress and put them on the desks of federal agency staffers instead. But more than anything, eliminating earmarks removed a powerful incentive for individual lawmakers to vote for legislation. It’s not a coincidence that Congress’ cycle of crippling dysfunction began when earmarks went away. Every member of Congress needs a good reason to vote for a bill. Funding for a local project in their district can be a good reason, if the project is necessary, vetted and transparent.”⁵⁶

As much as congress enjoys toying around making public remarks for messaging purposes for their campaign or political party, it seems to be when it comes to stimulus spending, congress has been too lazy to allocate funds. It should come as no surprise that the legislative branch does act slow. Sometimes that can be a good thing, but other times it’s very not so. 

At the end of her article, Murphy suggested that earmarks should be brought back with a push for more transparency. “Congress should publish every earmark request and approval on its own, with a justification for every project.” Furthermore, she stated that Congress has failed as a legislative system without earmarks, and that by getting rid of the corruption of its past, congress would not only bring infrastructure to their districts, but in the wide-range scope, Congress can get up-and-running again.⁵⁷

Paul Ryan (R-WI) who succeeded Boehner to become the next House Speaker in October 2015, spoke from the Speaker’s podium on the House floor after being elected to his new position, “To me, the House of Representatives represented the best of America, the boundless opportunity to do good,” to which he added, “But let’s be frank. The House is broken. We’re not solving problems, we’re adding to them. And I’m not interested in laying blame. We're not settling scores, we’re wiping the slate clean.”⁵⁸

Jake Sherman of Politico suggested in his column about Ryan’s future in the new job:

“He'll face the task of following through on his promises to the rank and file. To prove he’s serious about reforming the institution, Ryan is embarking on an overhaul of internal House procedures, restructuring a powerful committee that selects committee assignments. Ryan has told his colleagues that he plans to rewrite internal institutional rules by the end of the year, with the help of the entire House Republican Conference… But Ryan will be on a short leash. The conservative House Freedom Caucus wants Ryan to truly change the way the institution runs. Its members voted overwhelmingly for him on Thursday morning.”⁵⁹

One of reasons why the House Freedom Caucus held onto supporting was due to Ryan being a strong voice against the practice of earmarks, especially since he served as Chairman of both the House Budget Committee from 2011-2015, as well as the Ways and Means Committee from January to October 2015.

A year later, Donald Trump made head waves into the 2016 election with the one of his many key campaign phrases, “Drain the Swamp,” and by all odds won the presidential election against Hillary Clinton. With such a large victory for Republicans, Ryan suggested that Trump needed time to dry out the place before the Republican-led House can start the process of earmarking again. Even if a proposal to bring back earmarks passed the House, it would have difficulty in the Senate, amongst the two senators were from Arizona, John McCain, and Jeff Flake.⁶⁰

Representative Mike Simpson (R-ID) said he would support earmarks being brought back into Congress, but suggested to reporters that Republicans supporting that idea would’ve looked bad, especially in the first few weeks after the 2016 election. Agreeing with the earmark postponement by Speaker Ryan, Simpson said, “We shouldn’t be the only ones who have to carry this burden. Democrats would just beat the s--- out of us, even though they want to change it as much as we do.”⁶¹

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The Republican party knew that President Trump was a historic game changer when it came to implementing policy decisions, and by doing so those in Congress who backed Trump’s vision on set policy to make law were for the most part given some sort of political benefit. The iconic 2017 photo, after the passage of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, shows a massive huddle of Republican lawmakers who were behind or alongside President Trump at the White House. This was a signature photo-op to show how loyal the Republican party as a whole was willing to show their support for the president. Some members included Vice President Mike Pence, Speaker Paul Ryan, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and Sen. Tim Scott, as well as House Representatives Mark Meadows, Rep. Don Young, Rep. Kristi Noem, and many more. This was no doubt one of President Trump’s biggest legislative victories of his presidency, but upon a slight historic review into his term, there was a cost on the other side of the coin.

According to Allan Sloan, and Cezary Podkul of The Washington Post, Trump’s term resulted in a massive spending spree, with $7.8T added to the national debt. Although it was necessary to spend during the early months of the Covid pandemic to avoid what economists called, an economic cataclysm, the issue of federal spending still grew even before the crisis, when the economy was the greatest in decades.⁶²

Despite Trump’s campaign promise to cut spending, his administration made little to no restraint to help shrink the ever-growing debt burden. Even he suggested to Sean Hannity in June of 2018 that despite the nation being $21T in debt, the country “will start paying off that debt like it’s water,” once the 2017 tax cuts kick in.⁶³

Not only did tax cuts take out a big chunk of federal revenue, but the Congressional Budget Office suggested that in the following year 2018, such tax cuts increased the federal deficit over 11 years by $1.9T. Following into the latter part of 2019, the national debt had risen to $23.2T, with the director of the CBO, Phillip Swagel saying in January 2020, “Not since World War II has the country seen deficits during times of low unemployment that are as large as those that we project - nor, in the past century, has it experienced large deficits for as long as we project.”⁶⁴

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In a bipartisan meeting in early January 2018 on tackling the issue of immigration, Trump said something that shook the foundation of Congress to its core, for which he said, “I hear so much about earmarks - the old earmark system - how there was a great friendliness when you had earmarks. Maybe all of you should start thinking about going back to a form of earmarks… because this system really lends itself to not getting along.”⁶⁵

Trump was known for going against the establishment quo in Washington DC, but this opened a door for the pro-earmark support some members of Congress desperately needed. And with that push, two members of Congress were open to proposals to bring back legislative earmarks. 

Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) who served on both the Rules Committee, as well as the Budget and Appropriations Committee, told reporters three reasons why Congress should go back to earmarks, “I think we’ve just given up so much power to the executive branch, number one. Number two, obviously you’ve lost a legislative tool that’s useful, and number three you’ve lost the ability to literally take care of problems in your own district, you know, or the districts of other members that you need to help… so the case for them is overwhelming.”⁶⁶

As per USA Today, Caroline Boothe a spokeswoman for Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) told the news agency that the House Rules Committee, in which Sessions was chairman of, would not be using the word “earmark” but instead replace it with “congressionally directed spending.”⁶⁷ 

This was technically the official terminology of an earmark, but coined in a different phrase. 

Possibly the harshest critique on the practice of earmarks was from Michael Needham, who was the CEO of the conservative think-tank Heritage Action, who said to reporters, “It is nearly unthinkable that after President Trump ran a historically successful election to ‘drain the swamp’ in Washington, D.C., Congress would consider reinstating one of the most egregious examples of cronyism on Capitol Hill.”⁶⁸

No doubt did President Trump come into office campaigning to loosen Washington’s bureaucratic grip with the popular phrase “Drain the Swamp.” With Republicans having congressional power entering 2016, most establishment members of the party were eager to support Trump’s policies. This is usually because when a party in power has taken control of the executive branch, congressional leaders will throw their support however they can to make sure the President’s agenda is enacted. It seemed to be that earmarks were part of what made up the Swamp, and by Trump heading into office, his administration may have held the continuation of the ban in the respect of the past administration before him, including congressional Republicans. 

As previous members have suggested, the ban of earmarks made an appropriations shift away from the legislative branch, and into the executive branch, therefore building more power to the president, and its administrative agencies. Those agencies are in the realm of working alongside corporate interests too, thus banning earmarks resulted in more cronyism than what may have been suggested constantly by anti-earmarkers.

A powerful member of Congress other than the Speaker, look no further than Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) who was not only close to President Trump, but he was Chairman of the powerful conservative House Freedom Caucus. He said on the subject of earmarks, “When you’re talking about draining the swamp it is very difficult in the same mouthful to suggest that we are going to reinstitute earmarks. Generally, it leads to more spending and less accountability, so I can’t imagine that it would be any different now.”⁶⁹

Meadows would later follow-up with an interview with Fox News host Neil Cavuto to shortly discuss earmarks:

Cavuto: The President wants earmarks back, do you?

Meadows: No, I'm not a big fan of earmarks. I think that Neil our constitutional responsibility should lie within the entire $1.1T that we’re about to appropriate, not just a few small dollars. It’s normally a way to provide leverage, and increase spending. I don’t know if it’s something that I can support. 

Cavuto: Even though the President seems to be saying it’s a way to get both sides talking.

Meadows: Well the president. This is not. This is one of the few things that’s not the president’s decision. It’s really a decision of the House, and so if you gonna say agrees the skids by spending more money, that’s not what mom’s and dad’s back home have told me to do.⁷⁰

Meadows, the staunch conservative catered to keep prolonging the establishment support of the earmark ban in his interview. For nearly a decade this remark had been repeated constantly amongst fiscal conservatives concerned with deficit spending. But what they failed to recognize was not only did earmarks consist of less than 1% of the federal budget, fiscal conservatives supported Trump when it came to big government spending, especially during the 2017 Trump tax reform bill. 

As mentioned earlier, Senators Flake and McCaskill had been strong opponents of congressional pork. So strong, it was just enough to bite their teeth off actual pork. To make a bipartisan case for opposing earmarks where talks had begun in the House, Flake and McCaskill protested in a messaging stunt by eating barbecue foods. 

Flake said that this was made due to a “serious concerned effort in the House” while McCaskill said, “The swampiest of creatures are what earmarks are… It's who you are, who you know, what lobbyists you hired, what party you're in, what committee you serve on and whether you're a chairman. Now nowhere do I see a good deal for taxpayers.”⁷¹

Since the ban on earmarks, supporters of the practice have raised concern that it’s not lawmakers who decide where projects get funded, but rather Washington bureaucrats. To create a messaging campaign, Flake and McCaskill went to the cameras to advance a practice that not only left the power of appropriations out of the hands of Congress, but more towards the federal agencies. Not supporting a much slower lawmaking process, with members continuously having trouble getting money for projects in their districts.

As much of a whirlwind Trump had brought with him by opening the door for Congress to bring back earmarks, the ban was still in effect throughout his entire first term, even with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) gaining back her House Speakership position after losing the spot in early 2011 to Boehner. Therefore shifting back to Democratic majority rule in 2019 for the first time since the midterm blue wave of 2006. But with a new party in power, that didn’t mean talks stopped entirely. House Democrats in early 2019 didn’t want to commit just yet to bring back earmarks straightaway after winning the people’s house. 

Chairwoman of the House Appropriations Committee Nita Lowey (D-NY) wrote in her letter to lawmakers in March 2019 that a bipartisan agreement hasn’t come to light on bringing back earmarks, despite party leaders from both parties spending weeks trying to find a way to bring back earmarks. Lowey further stated, "Over the coming months, Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate must discuss the issue of earmarks in our respective caucuses and conferences to determine member preferences, solicit ideas to ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent wisely, and when applicable, change rules to permit members to request earmarks."⁷² 

When pressed by Politico, spokeswoman Mariel Saez for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s office said, “Mr. Hoyer will continue to have conversations with leaders from both parties and chambers to find a path forward to restore earmarks with reforms to ensure transparency and accountability.”⁷³

Her statement indicated that lawmakers who wrote for the 2020 fiscal year will not have earmarks included in their spending bills. But there is a key factor where there might be a light at the end of the tunnel. Lowey, who served in Congress for over 30 years, had been a supporter of earmarks, and in a statement she said, “I know, from my own experience, I pursue the earmarks that really help my community. And I will stand behind every dollar and project I ever secured. So there are a lot of members who feel that way.”⁷⁴

The difference between both parties was that Republicans have for the most part kept shut both lock and key on making any progress to bring back earmarks. But when Democrats regained control, they slowly were open to getting earmarks up and running, especially since Trump, of all people, brought the spotlight back. 

Heading into 2021 with a new legislative session of Congress, and the new presidential administration of Joe Biden, in a stunning turn of events, House Republicans voted to approve lifting the ban on earmarks after a closed-door conference vote. Such a change was made by Rep. Mike D. Rogers (R-AL) with minor indications similar to their Democratic colleagues who were planning to bring back earmarks.⁷⁵

The new resolution rule adopted by GOP members explained that members must make their earmarks requests by public disclosure, as well as acknowledging that they nor any family members had any financial interest in said projects. More so, Republicans added that members were required to publicly explain in writing why their request is appropriate for the use of taxpayer funds, including leaders in both the party and committees “shall not give consideration to a member’s seniority, committee assignments, or position in the elected leadership when facilitating a request.”⁷⁶

Commenting on the change to reporters, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said, “members want to have a say in their own district,” stressing that his party colleagues expressed “a real concern about the administration directing where the money goes.”⁷⁷

Overall, the introduction to bring back earmarks this year was made by Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), who served as the chairwoman for the House Appropriations Committee. She outlined that members of Congress could request up to 10 projects to fund that have “community support,” and that no family member or themselves have financial ties to the projects. In addition, they must submit their requests to the Appropriations panel at the same time they post their request online. DeLauro in her earmark guidelines included that there ought to be a 1% cap on the earmarked funds of discretionary spending, with none of the money able to be sent to for-profit interests.⁷⁸

She expressed that this new process of earmarking would let House members “put their deep, first-hand understanding of the needs of their communities to work to help the people we represent.”⁷⁹ In other words, it was a new way for  members of Congress to make up to ten requests under the 1% cap, to help jumpstart projects in their districts. This was ideal to help facilities that have been lacking the proper funds to get the now-needed restoration projects, or fixing sewers, new roads, or bridge replacements.

The move to lift the ban on earmarks was not pleasant, for it was met with staunch backlash amongst more conservative members, especially those in the House Freedom Caucus, who in a statement said they overwhelmingly opposed the practice of earmarks, and “oppose the use of earmarks, whether in the 117th Congress or any future Congress.”⁸⁰ As determined that case may be, their Republican colleagues saw the issues on earmarks differently politically.

Tom Cole (R-OK) who was the House Rules Committee ranking member, expressed he was advocating with other members of his party that Republicans may be poised to a political disadvantage if they were not to be a part of the earmarking process. In a segment to Roll Call, Cole said, “I think all we would do is deal ourselves out of the game, hurt our ability to help some of our more vulnerable members. I don’t believe in denying ourselves tools in the toolbox when you’re in a fight, weapons when you’re in a battle. And again, if members don’t want to participate, that’s certainly their option.”⁸¹

Over the last few years, some Republicans in Congress, such as Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) who tried to bring back earmarks have voiced concern over the increasing power of the executive branch, with less say by congress. Rounds said, “Personally, I’d much rather have directed appropriations by members of Congress and not by the administration. So based on what protections they build in, I have an interest in seeing the current status changed.”⁸²

More from the Senate side, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) lightly said in a Fox News interview that members of his party in the Senate were not in favor of earmarks, “I represent the entire conference and I can tell you the overwhelming majority of the Republican Conference in the Senate is not in favor of going back to earmarks. I’m assuming those people - even if Democrats craft the bill so that those are permitted - will not be asking for them.”⁸³

House Republicans were concerned about earmarks because they thought that if there was no way to to shift control back to Congress, this would give leeway for the Biden administration to spend money however they see fit in spending decisions. House Republican Whip Steve Scalese (R-LA) briefly told reporters that Republicans would be hurt if they were not allowed in the spending practice, noting his concern about the Biden administration's $1.9T Covid relief package. To drive the point further, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-FL) said, “I’ll be damned if I am going to cede all spending authority to Biden and his administration.”⁸⁴

There seemed to be a development in this era where members of congress want to bring back earmarks because they didn’t want spending fully allocated by the executive branch. Yet those who supported the decade-long ban still held onto old talking points of how earmarks were part of the Swamp. 

In the Senate, fifteen Republicans, led by Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) called themselves that they were committed to continuing the ban on earmarks, and will not vote on its repeal, “We will not participate in an inherently wasteful spending practice that is prone to serious abuse,'' they wrote in a statement. While Republicans have had difficulty coming to terms with what to do with earmarks and the spending practice, House Republican members voted 102-84 by secret ballot to go ahead with earmarks as long as there were new guardrails to meet certain criteria.⁸⁵

Despite some Republican members wanting to keep the ban on earmarks, most Republicans overall abandoned their past fiscal conservative policies once Trump took office. The political establishment of the party knew it was Trump who set the tone for policy. A strong ally of Trump was Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) who said upon former President Trump’s window of opportunity to get earmarks back in Congress, “I’m with Trump on this, Trump believes that Congress should have a say.”⁸⁶

Senate Republicans have faced similar hurdles on tackling the earmarks issue on political grounds just as their House colleagues across the Capitol, Senator John Thune (R-SD) was quoted by saying, “We have a good, strong contingent of people that just say: no way, no how. But we’ve got other members that say: 'How do I explain this at home if the Dems are doing it and the House Republicans are doing it?'” The issue has been expressed by Senators Graham and Shelby too, proclaiming that if congressional Republicans don’t show up to participate at the table on earmarks, they may lose the capability to have taxpayer capital invested in their local projects, only to have the funding managed by Democrats.⁸⁷

Senator Joe Kennedy (R-LA) also interjected on the issue of earmarks, “I suspect that where we end up is some decide to do earmarks, some decide not to,” further commenting about republican infighting, “I don’t think anybody will end up getting stabbed about it.”⁸⁸

Rep. Tom Cole who has tried previously to bring back earmarks has made outstanding remarks in both for the defense of the practice, and against members of his own party who continued anti-earmark past talking points. According to Burgess Everett, and Caitlin Emma of Politico:

“In the House, members of the hard-right Freedom Caucus are some of the only remaining Republican holdouts when it comes to earmark participation. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a senior appropriator and defender of the practice, said he routinely beats back concerns that earmarks will be weaponized in attack ads and keep Republicans from regaining a majority in Congress. “We didn’t lose the majority in 2006 because of earmarks and we didn’t get it back in 2010 because we didn’t have them,” Cole said in a recent interview. He insisted that they don't “lead to excess spending.” Though the political battle within the GOP is heated, Cole argued earmarks are “coming back one way or another.” In practice, that’s likely to look like this: Democratic and Republican caucuses in both the House and Senate will probably be given several billion dollars each to earmark to specific projects, and they can choose to use the cash how they see fit.”⁸⁹

The movement to ban earmarks in Republican circles has tampered down over the years, and the success of the 2010 Tea Party movement only became fragments a decade later. Although few politicians have expressed old points not wanting earmarks to be brought back into the spotlight, historically, such a move has hurt Republican legislators in the foot. And the only way for them to heal their wounds was to understand that when a situation changes, one must be willing to change with the problem.

Some Republicans have adapted to changing situations, and have been eager to help fund their districts, while advocating to cut spending. Take this case reported by James Q. Lynch of The Gazette, by three congressional lawmakers from Iowa, two Republican and one Democrat: Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-1st Dist), Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-2nd Dist), and Rep. Cindy Axne (D-3rd Dist).

After taking office in January 2020, Rep. Hinson said, “I came to D.C. to be a taxpayer advocate. I am against wasteful spending and believe we need to cut excessive spending… But I also was elected to fight for Iowa. I would rather this money go to Iowa than to California,” referring to Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats bringing back earmarks, “I want to bring taxpayer dollars back to Iowa to be reinvested at home.”⁹⁰

Hinson had requested funds to improve infrastructure projects such as $50k for the Leader in Me program located in Waterloo, and capital to improve the locks and dams located alongside the Mississippi River at a cost of $22.5M. Rep. Miller-Meeks had requested funds that would go toward replacement efforts in a Scott County bridge for $600k, as well as $750k towards the final phase of improving a 40-year old transportations facility located in Iowa City that reeks of overcrowding, roof leaks, and deterioration. Meanwhile, Rep. Axne had requested funding for projects in her district such as $100k towards a dental care program, and $1.6M to replace the Johnston bridge.⁹¹ 

But not all Iowan representatives were on board to request earmark projects. A spokesperson for Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-4th Dist) said, “Feenstra believes it is time for Congress to restore fiscal stability and balance our budget so that we can begin making sound investments in America’s future.” Even Iowan Senators such as Grassley called earmarks an “ill-conceived effort to grease the wheels to pass legislation only because it includes pet projects for congressmen,” while Senator Ernst said earmarks were a “disgrace… just the swamp returning to its normal habitat.”⁹²

Despite some Iowan Republicans not getting on board with earmarks, Hinson and Axne specify the earmarks they have requested do not add any dollar amount to the government’s federal budget. Rather, in Hinson’s remarks, she pointed out that they are requesting, “money already being designated to certain federal programs be allocated to these projects within those programs.” It was also a way to come to terms with the reality of bipartisan legislation working across the political aisle, “to work together in a constructive way that respects taxpayers. This project is of critical economic importance to both of our district’s economies.”⁹³ 

Despite it being early in the earmarking process, the requests are still pending approval, and such a request by a congressperson does not officially guarantee that said project will be funded. This, generally speaking, would give the exposure necessary to advocate for the project's funding. 

Taking into account from Rep. Feenstra’s quote, “we can begin making sound investments in America’s future,” this had been a similar talking point to save future generations from carrying the burden of their shoulders of the ever-growing federal deficit. While it is gracious to have older generations look out to protect those who will be living in the future, part of that responsibility would be making those investments towards funding projects where towns, and their families needed it most. Congresswoman Hinson has shown that one can fight for the American taxpayer on cutting wasteful spending, while at the same time making sure her district is getting the proper funds to support projects that will help their home economies. 

With the new presidential administration, President Biden made it a priority to improve America’s infrastructure. But primarily with a 50-50 Senate, Democrats know that they have to work with Republicans to make sure such a piece of legislation gets passed. And in doing so may require a trade-off or logrolling situation inside the negotiations process.

Recently, such infrastructure legislation was passed 69-30, with conservatives such as Sen, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and Sen. Tom Tillis (R-NC) on board, just to make a few. However, after the vote on the $1T infrastructure package (now awaiting the House to do their part), the Senate voted 50-49 along party lines to start debate on a budget resolution that would accumulate up towards $3.5T in aiming for the passage of a broader package of investments.⁹⁴

Political commentator Kyle Kulinski, creator and host of the Youtube channel Secular Talk, said in his segment about the recently passed bipartisan infrastructure bill from the Senate:

“Listen to this, I mean their argument was so weak… The argument that a lot of these people gave was ‘Oh it’s gonna add about $250B to the deficit! [Dramatic emphasis added] I can’t in good faith do that.’ These are the same people who in 2017, not even that long ago cast a vote, had nearly $2T to the debt and the deficit when it came to the Trump tax cuts for the rich where 83% of the benefits went to the top 1%. They voted for that to add to the deficit, but when it comes to stuff that will actually rebuild the country, ‘[dramatic emphasis added] Oh! We can’t do it because of the debt and the deficit.’ Like they’re not even trying… They’ll add to the deficit all day long for a Wall Street bailout or for another endless war… but when it comes to rebuild the country, ‘[dramatic emphasis added] Oh! The deficit! The deficit!’ It’s so weak. It’s as weak as it gets.”⁹⁵

Nevertheless, those who supported the decades-long ban make similar remarks about the deficit today, as Kulinski pointed out. It doesn’t take an average Joe to figure out that federal spending, and the federal deficit was going to increase during each passing presidential administration.

If earmarks were not banned over a decade ago, and more attention was given to projects that desperately needed infrastructure repair without leaving for dry, there is a possibility that our nation would not be dealing with a multi-trillion dollar crumbling infrastructure crisis.

It was never the fact that earmarks were the most crucial issue, despite what the modern political frenzy may have made it out to be back then. On a foundational level, Congress knows more about what is happening in their local constituencies, community groups, and their states overall, hence why it is they who have the power of appropriations in the constitution, not some executive agency. But when the executive bureaucracy had the power of the purse when the earmarks ban was implemented, it was the latter who decided where the money for funding was going to go, not the legislature.

Part of this nation's yearning to be rebuilt better, or made great again, came with the realization that infrastructure advancement was always a considerable part of an essential component for a strong American economy. The move to ban earmarks for a decade made both financial hardships and political consequences, to which Americans were never able to completely understand until the bill was due.

Communities especially in small towns lacked proper funding to help their local townspeople build new bridges, sewers, and additional infrastructure that would have been beneficial in many ways. All because some elected officials thought it was in their best political interest to support the earmarks ban. By then it may have been too late for many locals.

For those who supported the ban in the early years, lawmakers later had to come to terms with facing funding difficulties in their districts, including the political risk of bringing back what once was a normal part of the practice in lawmaking, despite the harsh critiques by those who were against earmarks. 

With the midterm season looming in 2022, Democrats are destined to keep their majority rule in both chambers, while Republicans hope history is on their side by being the new party in control of Congress since a Democratic president took over the White House in 2020. If Republicans do gain back majority control in either chamber, Republicans should understand from the lessons of history that another ban on earmarks will hurt their communities, and the colleagues within their own party.  

Luckily, there are a few who understand historical precedent, and that they can fight on behalf of their district to make sure revenue is being brought into their local economies in order to start reinvesting. All while fighting against wasteful government spending that has little to do with bringing back infrastructure.

What once was a move to cut spending to reduce the deficit, the earmark ban only took away lawmakers’ bipartisan practice. Calls for banning the earmark practice was all a political ploy when it’s been estimated to be just less than 1% of the federal budget. Though President Obama may have possibly caved to some of the Republican demands on reducing spending, once the ban was in place, members of Congress found difficulty getting funding for their districts since the power of appropriation for those projects was taken away from them, and into federal bureaucratic hands of the executive agencies. Scrambling to find a solution, some Republican members would speak up in their party conferences, at times with no avail success in persuading deficit-oriented Tea Party elected members.

Once Trump came into office, the Tea Party had slowly faded away, only to be focused on Trump’s upcoming agendas for his term in office, for it was he who steered the direction of the Republican party establishment, not the other way around. Despite deficit spending having increased and became less of a political issue on Capitol Hill, to his credit during his term in office, Trump did try to bring back a bipartisan issue close to an agreement, even having members publicly state that they would be open to the thought of it. However, both parties in Congress refused to bring the practice back during the rest of his first tenure. 

Now that Democrats hold the keys to the congressional castle by only a few strings barley hanging on to its end, Republican members have come to terms acknowledging that to help their districts not be bulldozed by how the Democratic party agendas sees fit, they must have the courage to start taking a seat at the appropriations table, and get into the process of bringing back earmarks whether they want to or not.

Congress is indeed the engine that keeps America running, and earmarks are the grease necessary to keep the gears moving. But without earmarks, the legislative body as an institution would come to a loud screeching halt, which is never in the county’s best long-term interest.

1. Deirdre Walsh, Evan Glass, and Alan Silverleib, “House GOP Adopts Yearlong Earmark Ban,” CNN, March 11, 2010, http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/03/11/gop.earmarks/index.html.

2. Walsh, Glass, and Silverleib, “House GOP Adopts Yearlong Earmark Ban,” CNN, March 11, 2010.

3. Walter Alarkon, “Self-Imposed Republican Moratorium Leads to Drop in 2011 Earmark Spending,” The Hill, August 1, 2010, https://thehill.com/policy/finance/112059-gop-moratorium-leads-to-drop-in-2011-earmark-spending.

4. Alarkon, “Self-Imposed Republican Moratorium Leads to Drop in 2011 Earmark Spending,” The Hill, August 1, 2010.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid.

8. Brian Montopoli, “House Republicans Adopt Earmarks Ban in New Congress,” CBS, November 18, 2010, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-republicans-adopt-earmarks-ban-in-new-congress/.

9. Montopoli, “House Republicans Adopt Earmarks Ban in New Congress,” CBS, November 18, 2010.

10. Ibid.

11. “Obama Signals Desire to Address Earmarks,” Roll Call, November 13, 2010, https://www.rollcall.com/2010/11/13/obama-signals-desire-to-address-earmarks/.

12. “Obama Signals Desire to Address Earmarks,” Roll Call, November 13, 2010.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Scott Wong, “Senate Dems Give in on Earmark Ban,” Politico, February 1, 2011, https://www.politico.com/story/2011/02/senate-dems-give-in-on-earmark-ban-048623.

16. David Weigel, “Senate Appropriations Committee Bans Earmarks,” February 1, 2011, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/02/senate-appropriations-committee-bans-earmarks.html.

17. Wong, “Senate Dems Give in on Earmark Ban,” Politico, February 1, 2011.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. Scott Wong, “Senate Dems Give in on Earmark Ban,” Politico, February 1, 2011, https://www.politico.com/story/2011/02/senate-dems-give-in-on-earmark-ban-048623. ; David Weigel, “Senate Appropriations Committee Bans Earmarks,” February 1, 2011, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/02/senate-appropriations-committee-bans-earmarks.html.

21. Rachel Streitfeld, and John Helton, "Romney Jabs at Santorum’s Record in CNN Debate," CNN, February 23, 2012, https://www.cnn.com/2012/02/22/election/2012/arizona-debate/index.html. ; "Romney Clash on Earmarks at CNN Arizona Debate," CNN, February 22, 2012,

22. Streitfeld and Helton, "Romney Jabs at Santorum’s Record in CNN Debate," CNN, February 23, 2012.

23. Kate Nocera, and Adam Snider, "Earmarks: GOP Frosh Face Dilemma," Politico, May 5, 2012, https://www.politico.com/story/2012/05/no-earmarks-gop-frosh-face-dilemma-075810.

24. Nocera and Snider, "Earmarks: GOP Frosh Face Dilemma," Politico, May 5, 2012.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. Jessica Mayers, and Jonathan Allen, "Don Young's Railroad to Nowhere," Politico, July 10 2012, https://www.politico.com/story/2012/07/alaska-at-it-again-078318.

28. Mayers and Allen, "Don Young's Railroad to Nowhere," Politico, July 10 2012.

29. Ibid.

30. Jerry Markon and David S. Fallis, "Paul Ryan has Record of Pushing for and Earmarking Federal Funds for his District," The Washington Post, August 17, 2012, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ryan-has-record-of-pushing-for-and-earmarking-federal-funds-for-his-district/2012/08/17/gJQAjcon2X_story.html.

31. Markon and Fallis, "Paul Ryan has Record of Pushing for and Earmarking Federal Funds for his District," The Washington Post, August 17, 2012.

32. Ibid.

33. Humberto Sanchez, "Are Earmarks Really Dead?," Roll Call, November 26, 2012, https://www.rollcall.com/2012/11/26/are-earmarks-really-dead/.

34. Sanchez, "Are Earmarks Really Dead?," Roll Call, November 26, 2012.

35. Ibid.

36. Ibid.

37. Burgess Everett, “Bachmann Pushes Road Project,” March 21, 2013, Politico, https://www.politico.com/story/2013/03/michele-bachmann-highway-project-earmark-089194.

38. Jeremy Herb, “Bachmann: Transportation Projects Shouldn't Be Earmarks,” November 15, 2010, Star Tribune, https://www.startribune.com/bachmann-transportation-projects-shouldn-t-be-earmarks/108244669.

39. Ibid.

40. Everett, “Bachmann Pushes Road Project,” March 21, 2013, Politico.

41. Burgess Everett, “Earmarks Divide Republicans,” Politico, May 7, 2014, https://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/earmark-debate-congress-106470.

42.  Everett, “Earmarks Divide Republicans,” Politico, May 7, 2014.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46.  Burgess Everett, "Boehner Bans a Return to Earmarks," Politico, May 2, 2014, https://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/john-boehner-earmarks-106582.

47. Elaine S Povich, "Hal Rogers Cuts the Pork," Insider, August 9, 2011, https://www.businessinsider.com/hal-rogers-earmark-king-holds-the-pork-2011-8.

48. Jason Linkins, "Let's Do It! Let's Bring Back Earmarks!," Huffington Post, August 6, 2014, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/earmark-reform_n_5656138.

49. Thomas B. Edsall, "The Value of Political Corruption," The New York Times, August 5, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/opinion/thomas-edsall-the-value-of-political-corruption.html.

50. Thomas B. Edsall, "The Value of Political Corruption," The New York Times, August 5, 2014.

51. Linkins, "Let's Do It! Let's Bring Back Earmarks!," Huffington Post, August 6, 2014.

52. Ibid.

53. Lauren French, "Cleaver Revives Push to Bring Back Earmarks," Politico, October 22, 2015, https://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/emanuel-cleaver-revives-earmark-push-215049.

54. French, "Cleaver Revives Push to Bring Back Earmarks," Politico, October 22, 2015.

55. Patricia Murphy, "Bring Back the Earmarks - Really," Roll Call, November 18, 2016, https://www.rollcall.com/2016/11/18/bring-back-the-earmarks-really/. ; Theodoric Meyer, "DOJ Files Charges Against Disgraced Lobbyist Jack Abramoff," Politico, June 26, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/25/doj-charges-jack-abramoff-340434.

56. Murphy, "Bring Back the Earmarks - Really," Roll Call, November 18, 2016.

57. Ibid.

58. Jake Sherman, "Paul Ryan Elected 54th House Speaker," Politico, October 15, 2015, https://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/ryan-elected-house-speaker-215342.

59. Sherman, "Paul Ryan Elected 54th House Speaker," Politico, October 15, 2015.

60. Deirdre Walsh, and Ted Barrett, “Ryan Slams Brakes On Vote to Bring Back Earmarks,” CNN, November 16, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/16/politics/house-republicans-earmarks/index.html.

61. Walsh and Barrett, “Ryan Slams Brakes On Vote to Bring Back Earmarks,” CNN, November 16, 2018.

62. Allan Sloan, and Cezary Podkul, “Trump’s Most Enduring Legacy Could Be the Historic Rise in the National Debt,” The Washington Post, January 21, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/14/trump-legacy-national-debt-increasee/.

63.  Sloan, and Podkul, “Trump’s Most Enduring Legacy Could Be the Historic Rise in the National Debt,” The Washington Post, January 21, 2021.

64. Ibid.

65. Deirdre Shesgreen, and Eliza Collins, “Could Pork Make a Comeback? Trump and Congress Consider Reviving Earmarks,” USA TODAY, January 9, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/09/could-pork-make-comeback-trump-and-congress-consider-reviving-earmarks/1018877001/.

66. Shesgreen and Collins, “Could Pork Make a Comeback? Trump and Congress Consider Reviving Earmarks,” USA Today, January 9, 2018.

67. Ibid.

68. Ibid.

69. Ibid.

70. Neil Cavuto, Interview with Mark Meadows, "Rep. Mark Meadows Talks Immigration, Earmarks," Fox News, January 9, 2018,

71. Eliza Collins, “Flake, McCaskill Eat Pork to Protest Congressional Pork,” USA TODAY, January 24, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2018/01/24/flake-mccaskill-eat-pork-protest-congressional-pork/1063476001/.

72. Jennifer Scholtes, and Sarah Ferris, "House Democrats Say No to Earmarks - For Fow," Politico, March 1, 2019,  https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/01/house-democrats-no-earmarks-2793935.

73. Scholtes and Ferris, "House Democrats Say No to Earmarks - For Fow," Politico, March 1, 2019.

74. Ibid.

75. Jennifer Shutt, and Lindsey McPherson, "House Republican Conference Votes to Bring Back Earmarks," Roll Call, March 17, 2021, https://www.rollcall.com/2021/03/17/house-republican-conference-votes-to-bring-back-earmarks/.

76. Shutt and McPherson, "House Republican Conference Votes to Bring Back Earmarks," Roll Call, March 17, 2021.

77. Ibid.

78. Ibid.

79. Ibid.

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid.

82. Ibid.

83. Ibid.

84. Lauren Fox, and Daniella Diaz, “House Republicans Reverse Earmark Ban, Opening Door to Both Parties Using the Formerly Banned Practice,” CNN, March 17, 2021, https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/17/politics/house-republicans-earmarks-spending-practice/index.html.

85. Melaine Zanona, “15 Republican Senators Vow to Oppose Earmarks Amid Intraparty Squabble,” Politico, April 19, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/19/republicans-anti-earmarks-letter-483081.

86. Burgess Everett, and Caitlin Emma, “Senate Republicans at War Over Earmarks,” Politico, April 16, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/16/senate-republicans-earmarks-482219.

87. Ibid.

88. Ibid.

89. Ibid.

90. James Q. Lynch, “Congressional Earmarks are Back, and 3 Iowa Lawmakers Seek Over $51M for Projects,” The Gazette, June 7, 2021, https://www.thegazette.com/government-politics/congressional-earmarks-are-back-and-3-iowa-lawmakers-seek-over-51m-for-projects/.

91. Lynch, “Congressional Earmarks are Back, and 3 Iowa Lawmakers Seek Over $51M for Projects,” The Gazette, June 7, 2021.

92. Ibid.

93. Ibid.

94. Kelsey Snell, "The Senate Approves The $1 Trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill In A Historic Vote," NPR, August 10, 2021, https://www.npr.org/2021/08/10/1026081880/senate-passes-bipartisan-infrastructure-bill.

95. Kyle Kulinski, "SHOCK: Biden's Infrastructure Bill Passes w/ HUGE Bipartisan Support,” Secular Talk, August 11, 2021,

.