Breazeale on McIntyre’s earmarks

Rep. Mike McIntyre loves his earmarks – his pork barrel projects. He loves to bring checks from Washington back to the district. It seems like that is a full time job with him. The biggest problem with earmarks is the way Congress does them. They might be worthwhile projects but because they never have public hearings or debates about their merits, we will never really know.

Lots of members of Congress love their earmarks, and they hate to have to justify the spending. So instead of writing a bill for say $24 million to nourish the beaches and dredge the ICW - that $24 million, along with Billions for the other members’ special projects, gets slipped into other spending bills – like the one to fund the military, including pay raises, medical care for Veterans and funds for the war – never debated or even voted on.

The only time individual earmarks are voted on is if a brave member stands up and demands it. But even that rarely happens because many earmarks are snuck into the bills late at night and just before the Congress must act. The rare earmark that gets public attention – like Hillary’s Woodstock Museum for millions of dollars – get some press and sometimes get dropped out of the bill, but the Billions of dollars for the others stay right where they are and the taxpayers pay whether they like it or not.

The other problem with earmarks is that they direct where and how the money will be spent. Those should be local decisions, not left to the whim of someone in DC – someone who might never have seen the community affected by the project, let alone been to the district. Too often these earmarks are paybacks to someone with a special interest. If the mayor of a town is a supporter of the Congressman, maybe funneled several thousand dollars to the Congressman’s campaign fund, and he wants federal money for a new fire station, guess what the Congressman can slide that slice of fatback pork into the bill to fund Heath and Human Services and WOW! Look at that new fire station.

I believe that if that new fire station was really needed and was a good place to spend our federal tax dollars that it should have been introduced in a separate bill, had public hearings and voted on and sent to the President. Certainly if that happened it would be a much better system. But the best system would be to leave more tax dollars in the pockets of the citizens of the district and let them decide where to spend them. Building a new fire station is a local decision and it should be a local, maybe county or possibly a state responsibility to fund it. But it certainly should not be decided by Washington, DC and funded by federal tax dollars. Those are our dollars; don’t pick our pocket every April 15th just so Mike McIntyre can make a big show of bringing them back like a Christmas present.
When I am in Congress I will vote to remove earmarks that have not had public hearings, there won’t be any Woodstock Museums or bridges to no where. Our federal tax dollars should be spent in the bright sunshine, out in the open and not decided in the dark of the night. Soldiers on patrol in the war need night vision goggles not Congressmen in DC deciding how to spend our tax dollars.

Will Breazeale - Candidate for Congress NC-7