Earmarks have given way to ‘opaque’ budget process

There it sits, a lone entry in the huge Washington, D.C. database: HI, $5,870,000, East-West Center.

It is the only listing for Hawaii in the Citizens Against Government Waste annual "Pig Book."

Back in 2010, before the GOP-led earmark moratorium, Hawaii had $326 million in nearly 150 earmarks.

There was money for the University of Hawaii to study plants, fish and geology; the EWC earmark was more than $11 million; and there was some $30 million for the city rail system.

Feeding at the public trough just isn’t what it used to be.

The private group reports that its national tally shows pork projects decreased by 98.3 percent to 152 in 2012.

There are two ways to react.

One: "Hallelujah, the federal government has finally stopped wasting our money."

Or two: You can assume that the money will go out the back door. The citizen group warned in its report that Congress simply goes to a "deceptive practice that encourages backroom deal-making, vote swapping, and other political gamesmanship."

You recall that in February of 2011, Hawaii’s senior U.S. senator, Daniel K. Inouye, intoned that there shall be an earmark moratorium.

"The handwriting is clearly on the wall. 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," Inouye said.

It is not that Inouye disliked the practice; in fact, he said members of Congress have a constitutional right to "direct investments to their states and districts under the fiscally responsible and transparent earmarking process that we have established."

The change came on the insistence of the House GOP.

Inouye’s bowing to the House Republican budget was a major loss for the wily Capitol Hill veteran, who usually finds a way to win those spending skirmishes.

A moratorium is not the same as a permanent halt, so this February, Inouye reluctantly went along with a moratorium for another year, but he was not pleased, noting that what is not done with an earmark shall be done another way.

"In the end, the Congress will have to choose between an open and transparent method for allocating targeted funding, or one that is done with phone calls, conversations, winks and nods. One method allows for accountability and another leaves us all at the whim of unelected bureaucrats," Inouye said in a floor speech.

Yesterday Inouye’s deputy chief of staff, Peter Boylan, said: "Senator Inouye remains a strong supporter of congressional initiatives and continues to work with his colleagues in the Congress to reinstate an open and transparent process for congressionally directed funding."

Even the Citizens Against Government Waste said the new system was "opaque."

Just last week, Inouye as Appropriations Committee chairman started work on a discretionary budget of more than a trillion dollars.

Somehow, a debate over $5 million more of less for the East-West Center is on a molecular scale in comparison to a trillion-dollar budget.

When all of those budget cuts and earmark moratoriums are added together, however, the end results are jobs lost, programs canceled and services left undone.

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Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach him at rborreca@staradvertiser.com.