Sunday, March 08, 2009

Maryland Pork List

From the Baltimore Sun (click for a larger view):


Posted by Adam Pagnucco at 9:00 AM

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4 comments:

Scott said...

I am glad to see that Van Hollen has his name attached to BRAC improvements for Montgomery County. However, I wonder how much influence he had in the inclusion of this money. If you look at the lines above the Montgomery County BRAC earmark, Sens. Mikulski and Cardin are associated with all BRAC earmarks.

Could this have been Mikulski and Cardin's idea and they just brought Van Hollen along for the ride? In fact, every earmark Van Hollen is associated with has other sponsors. Some have many sponsors. Are these earmarks Van Hollen's idea or are his congressional colleagues using Van Hollen for his position in the House leadership?

1:13 AM
Marc Korman said...

Van Hollen's earmarks having cosponsors speaks to both their quality and likelihood of passage.

Regarding quality, multiple cosponsors means they have broad support and are not based on extremely narrow pork interests, even more narrow than the usual project. It also indicates that the projects are not based solely on the campaign donations of lobbyists and other interests to a single member.

Having worked the appropriations process for two House members (neither from Maryland), I can also say that having cosponsors helps make the case for funding. Having other House members is nice because it demonstrates broad support. Having Senators is even better because if you get a project in both the House and the Senate bill, they are more likely to survive into the conference report. Not every project a member requests, or even gets into the House bill, makes it to final passage.

Congressman Ruppersberger has a few of his own projects on the list. But he is a member of the House Appropriations Committee, the people who write the bills, so he has the inside track. Similarly, Hoyer is the Majority Leader. While Van Hollen has a seat at the leadership table, his position is not as important for gaining projects as an Approps Committee member or the Majority Leader.

None of this speaks to the merits of the earmark process, I'm just trying to provide some insight into how it actually works.

-Marc

8:37 AM
Alan Banov said...

This list,which contains many valuable improvements for the state, underscores the need to differentiate between needed appropriations and real "pork," which is just designed to funnel money or projects to the member's district or state and may not necessarily promote the public interest. The former is Kosher; the latter is treif.

Alan Banov

12:50 PM
Dana Beyer, M.D. said...

A very important point, Alan, as many of the projects listed are those that should be funded regardless of the source of the funding.

Nice differentiation between kosher and treif. Happy Purim!

10:30 PM

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