Senate Changed Paul

The earmark debate is dumb. Earmarks account for an absurdly small percentage of federal spending, so the hubbub over it is almost invariably a way to sound like one cares about the budget without actually having to cut anything worthwhile.

Nonetheless, it has been a bit of a tea party hobbyhorse, and opposition to earmarks was a key element of Sen.-elect Rand Paul's (R-KY) campaign. So much for that:

In a bigger shift from his campaign pledge to end earmarks, he tells me that they are a bad “symbol” of easy spending but that he will fight for Kentucky’s share of earmarks and federal pork, as long as it’s doled out transparently at the committee level and not parachuted in in the dead of night. “I will advocate for Kentucky’s interests,” he says.

Good lord, man, you've been elected for less than a week! At least go through the motions!

I'm reminded of the last panel of this comic:

THOG: Thog wonders how Thog will cope with life outside jailhouse walls. Prison changed Thog.

ELAN: We were only in there for 40 minutes.

THOG: Prison changed Thog quickly.

Hurting America for Pork

I think the pork issue is generally over-rated. It's not that I particularly care for random unnecessary pet projects sprouting up across the United States; it's that these projects are a relatively insignificant part of the federal budget, and thus "opposing" them (usually by Senators themselves shoulder-deep in the trough) is an easy way to sound fiscally diligent without actually doing anything about it.

But I do get annoyed when Senators and Representatives actively threaten the national security of the nation simply to point jobs towards their district. Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), on the other hand, is proud to be doing just that:

In his first television interview on the subject since then, the lawmaker admitted he put a near-blanket hold on 47 Obama nominees for a simple reason. "Well, I did it to get the attention of the administration," Shelby said.
[...]
Shelby is remarkably candid about the reasons for his controversial action. At a time when bringing home the bacon makes for some unappetizing politics, he unapologetically explains that he is just trying to put money and jobs into his home state.

"Ultimately, I am a senator from Alabama. I wanted to make sure there was fairness because if there was fairness, the jobs would go there," Shelby said.

He eventually lifted his hold on all but three nominees for senior Air Force positions.

Morrell, the Pentagon spokesman, said those vacancies "adversely affect the organization."

"Without these highly qualified professionals, we are not firing on all cylinders," Morrell said.

Shelby admits that issue doesn't really much matter to him. When asked about the qualifications of nominees he held up, Shelby replied, "Oh, I don't have any idea."

He openly concedes he is blocking them for one reason: leverage. "That's part of the life up here," he said.

Because this is an article written by the media, there is the requisite shot at Barack Obama, who placed a hold on Hans von Spakovsky when he was nominated to the FEC. Notably, they don't give any quotes from Obama, but simply ask von Spakovsky what he thought about the hold. And while he tries to play the martyr, he gets at an important distinction: Obama opposed von Spakovsky himself, on the merits of his nomination. And why not? Von Spakovsky's main claim to fame is as an expert at voter suppression -- not exactly what you want to see on the Federal Elections Commission. Maybe he could tag-team with Robert Mugabe.

In any event, Senator Shelby's holds had nothing to do with the nominees' policies, or indeed, about the nominees themselves. It was simply a power play to try and bring jobs to his district.

Pork Pork Pork Pork!

People who look dumb today: Susan Collins, Chuck Schumer, and everybody who laughed at David Obey.

UPDATE: Alberto Hurtado has the novel argument that, even though Republicans led the charge for removing epidemic preparations from the stimulus bill, it's the Democrats fault for listening to them. Believe me, I am happy to promulgate a norm for the rest of this Congressional session promising never to make that mistake again.

When the Swine Flu doesn't destroy the world, I'll have the joy not just of seeing civilization survive another day, but giving even further demonstration that Hurtado is a tremendous asshole.

Grab 'em By The Ears

Matt Yglesias defends earmarks (at least as the lesser evil):

As is well-known, in order to secure the votes of the handful of Republican Senators necessary to overcome the 60-vote hurdle, Obama had to make some non-trivial concessions. Those concessions have made the stimulus much less effective than it otherwise might have been and will lead to hundreds of thousands of people being unemployed who could have been engaged in productive labor. Suppose that instead of making this sort of large, substantive concession Obama had just been able to offer pointless pet projects for Pennsylvania and Maine. It seems to me that because those projects would have had locally concentrated benefits you could have made the deal worthwhile to Sens. Specter, Collins, and Snowe for a much lower bottom-line cost and ultimately better-served the public interest.

In other words, simply eliminating the most effective means of buying votes in the legislature doesn’t eliminate the practical necessity to do it. It just ensures that the vote-buying gets done in less efficient ways.

I always thought the anti-earmark fervor was a bit overblown, but they always seemed a bit unsavory, so I didn't mind that they were falling by the wayside. Matt's point, though, is solid, and one I hadn't thought of.

It's Tougher in Alaska

Listening to Alaskans fret about how their state will survive without Senator Ted Stevens' (R-AK) largess is ridiculously amusing to me. If your state can't survive without corruption-tainted pork, you have issues.

Chavez Gets Drilled By The New Mexican

New Mexico's second largest paper takes Marty Chavez to the mat. But what's most impressive is that the subject is Chavez's opponent, Tom Udall, refusing to pork barrel the Los Alamos National Lab unless it starts looking at alternative energy solutions.

Udall doesn't want folks out of work any more than Chávez does — or Sen. Domenici, who used his leadership on the Budget, then Energy, committees to keep the gravy train chugging onto Pajarito Mesa.

The recent announcement that LANL would cut 500 to 750 jobs, it seems, would place Udall front and center as the villain — until you consider how many Democrats might agree with him, and disagree with pork-barrel spending of an especially warlike kind. Los Alamos likely will remain trigger-maker to the nation for increasingly sophisticated and massively destructive weapons. Yet America has far more nuclear bombs than it would take to destroy enemies of today and tomorrow. What we don't have is the new energy system we and the rest of the world will need as fossil-fuel consumption soars and supplies of the stuff, inevitably, run short.

Can't our national-lab scientists see that — and do something about it? And if they can't, shouldn't Congress invest in operations that can?

Those are the nationally responsible questions Udall and some of his colleagues are asking; Kennedyesque queries in the form of challenges to mobilize our brightest scientific minds. It's time to transform the systems that make America run.

Udall knows it. And he wants New Mexicans gainfully employed in that pursuit.

Mayor Chávez and most Republicans have yet to recognize the grim challenge of "peak oil" and the global warming it promotes. Against such backward thinking, Tom Udall is a profile in courage.

You expect to hear that out of a blogger -- a blogger who does not live in New Mexico. Most Americans, unsurprisingly, are pork-for-me-but-not-for-thee, and I didn't expect New Mexico's papers to be any exception (and Los Alamos is far easier to defend than most pork projects!). So kudos to Udall for making the ballsy call, and kudos to the New Mexican for giving him credit in such unreserved language.