I’m offering my “two cents” on the controversy over “earmarking” by members of Congress of domestic project funds, as a former federal political appointee (at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in the Clinton Administration). Unelected and unknown like hundreds of others like me, for six years I was part of a small group annually able to select, or “earmark,” tens of millions of dollars in funds for rural drinking water and wastewater treatment projects (including in Montana).
The plain truth is, if elected, constitutionally-enabled members of Congress (like your own Rep. Denny Rehberg and Sens. Jon Tester and Max Baucus) choose not to decide where to allocate funds to all kinds of locally valuable projects (water and sewer, road and bridge, housing and school, flood control and forestry, and many more) the money does notgo back to the U.S. Treasury or taxpayers. It goes to a small army of non-elected career and political bureaucrats (like I used to be) who do decide.
The great majority of such “deciders” have never even been to Montana. Would you rather have them decide on how your tax dollars are put to work – or your bi-partisan congressional delegation and their in-state staff members? All the palaver aside, that’s the real choice here, clear and simple.
John Romano
Arlington, Va.