This morning's Post contains a story about earmarking and how the practice has crept back into the legislative process, despite last year's efforts to rule it out of bounds. Apparently earmarks are like mildew in the shower, and that reminds me of a book review I posted a couple of years ago in this space. I've pasted it below.
The sordid story of Congressional sausage making is well told in Robert G. Kaiser’s So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009). Kaiser makes a persuasive case that American universities—not Wall Street or the Teamsters or the AARP—are responsible for one of Washington’s nastiest and most expensive habits: earmarking.
As technical instruments for the appropriation of public monies, earmarks haven’t been around nearly as long as one might suppose. The protagonist in Kaiser’s history is a lobbyist named Gerald Cassidy, one of whose clients, Tufts University, wanted to build a nutrition center on its campus in Medford, Massachusetts—which, as luck would have it, was in the district of Tip O’Neill, who was soon to be elected Speaker of the House. O’Neill enlisted the support of Rep. Jamie Whitten, long-time power broker on the House Agriculture Committee. And voilà. In fiscal year 1978, as Kaiser tells the story, “Congress appropriated $20 million to build the nutrition center, and an additional $7 million to fund its initial operations. Though attached to Tufts, it would be formally part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which would pay its operating expenses for years to come.”[i]
As soon as they saw what Cassidy and Tufts president Jean Mayer had done, other universities were quick to get into the game. Kaiser’s story is fascinating because it involves so many academics—and priests, in the case of Georgetown and other Roman Catholic universities—along with a few certified scoundrels, including Jack Abramoff, and some of the most prominent members of Congress on both sides of the aisle (most notoriously, the late John Murtha (D-Pa), pictured above). The bucks, let it be said, are decidedly big; the last photo in the book’s gallery is an aerial shot of Gerry Cassidy’s $8 million estate on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.
One of the many virtues of this book is that Kaiser recognizes that there is a case to made on behalf of earmarks. To begin with, the distinction between “pork” and the legislator’s responsibility to “bring home the bacon” is largely one of perspective; it’s legitimate bacon when it’s on my plate, it’s pork when it’s on yours.
That said, I fear that Kaiser is right to suggest that while legislators sometimes can be corrupted by crooked lobbyists, it is as often the case that the vicious circle begins with Members of Congress who feel they must be increasingly aggressive in their pursuit of campaign contributions. So Damn Much Money is an informative account of Congressional sausage making, and one that suggests that Congress remains, in the words of Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, “the broken branch.” It’s not a pretty picture.
[i] Robert G. Kaiser, So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), p. 71
The sordid story of Congressional sausage making is well told in Robert G. Kaiser’s So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009). Kaiser makes a persuasive case that American universities—not Wall Street or the Teamsters or the AARP—are responsible for one of Washington’s nastiest and most expensive habits: earmarking.
As technical instruments for the appropriation of public monies, earmarks haven’t been around nearly as long as one might suppose. The protagonist in Kaiser’s history is a lobbyist named Gerald Cassidy, one of whose clients, Tufts University, wanted to build a nutrition center on its campus in Medford, Massachusetts—which, as luck would have it, was in the district of Tip O’Neill, who was soon to be elected Speaker of the House. O’Neill enlisted the support of Rep. Jamie Whitten, long-time power broker on the House Agriculture Committee. And voilà. In fiscal year 1978, as Kaiser tells the story, “Congress appropriated $20 million to build the nutrition center, and an additional $7 million to fund its initial operations. Though attached to Tufts, it would be formally part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which would pay its operating expenses for years to come.”[i]
As soon as they saw what Cassidy and Tufts president Jean Mayer had done, other universities were quick to get into the game. Kaiser’s story is fascinating because it involves so many academics—and priests, in the case of Georgetown and other Roman Catholic universities—along with a few certified scoundrels, including Jack Abramoff, and some of the most prominent members of Congress on both sides of the aisle (most notoriously, the late John Murtha (D-Pa), pictured above). The bucks, let it be said, are decidedly big; the last photo in the book’s gallery is an aerial shot of Gerry Cassidy’s $8 million estate on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay.
One of the many virtues of this book is that Kaiser recognizes that there is a case to made on behalf of earmarks. To begin with, the distinction between “pork” and the legislator’s responsibility to “bring home the bacon” is largely one of perspective; it’s legitimate bacon when it’s on my plate, it’s pork when it’s on yours.
That said, I fear that Kaiser is right to suggest that while legislators sometimes can be corrupted by crooked lobbyists, it is as often the case that the vicious circle begins with Members of Congress who feel they must be increasingly aggressive in their pursuit of campaign contributions. So Damn Much Money is an informative account of Congressional sausage making, and one that suggests that Congress remains, in the words of Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, “the broken branch.” It’s not a pretty picture.
[i] Robert G. Kaiser, So Damn Much Money: The Triumph of Lobbying and the Corrosion of American Government (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), p. 71
December 11, 2011, update: Today's Washington Post reports that this year's defense authorization bill included some $834 million in earmark requests put forward by both Democratic and Republican Members of the House of Representatives.
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