Posts Tagged ‘spending’
The what commission now?
President Obama’s “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” met for the second time today. They have just three more meetings before the panel releases its recommendations on December 1st. So, what’s the big news out of the meeting? It’s hard to know because the event seems to have gone completely uncovered in the press.
Perhaps internet culture has spoiled me, and maybe we’ll in fact see coverage in tomorrow’s morning papers, but right now, three hours after the meeting ended, I find no trace of coverage. Not from the AP, Reuters, or Bloomberg, and not from NYT, WaPo, or WSJ. The only thing I’ve found is a blog post from The Hill.
What does this tell us about the press? That they don’t think this meeting was that important. At the last meeting, Bernanke and Orszag testified, and it was widely covered. This time mere academics spoke. (Carmen Reinhardt pointed out that gross debt is approaching 90 percent of GDP, that this will drag down the economy, and that this will lead to further debt spiral. She counseled “austerity.”)
What does this tell us about the commission? I don’t want to overstate the point, but I think it says what everyone knows: that presidential commission go nowhere. Name the last presidential commission whose recommendations were heeded by Congress. As Judd Gregg pointed out before he joined the commission,
Numerous commissions have been created by executive order over the years, and their common thread is that none have produced any legislative results. How can they? No one has any real responsibility, or expectation of action, and so their recommendations collect dust on a shelf.
In which case, is the commission simply an election-year detente? Have we postponed seriously dealing with the problem until December so that both parties can avoid having to vote for the painful cuts and likely tax increases that are inevitable? How much worse will things get between now and then?
Just give us the earmark data
Today is the first day of Sunshine Week and I want to tell you about a project Jim Harper, Gunnar Hellekson and I have organized called EarmarkData.org.
Congress recently changed its rules to require members to disclose their earmark requests online. Unfortunately, they don’t disclose these in any consistent way. You have to hunt for where each member has decided to place their disclosure, so there’s no way to systematically analyze earmark data. The White House has promised to give us a unified database of earmarks, but so far hasn’t acted.
EarmarkData.org serves two purposes: First, it’s a petition that you can sign, asking the president and members of Congress to keep their promise and to give us earmark information in a meaningful data format that is truly transparent. Second, it’s a place for techies to help refine a data standard that Congress and the administration can use. We have a draft schema that we’re happy to give to Congress.
Now, I know what many of you are thinking. Why waste our time on earmarks when they only make such a tiny fraction of federal spending? Several reasons. First, I believe in incremental change, and if we can make a difference on this margin, I feel I’m earning my keep. Second, earmark spending may be small, but it is an enabler for bigger spending. Earmarks are how members are often repaid for their votes, and shedding light on this is a worthwhile endeavor. Finally, a more transparent earmark process can only help underscore what’s wrong with Washington and why we need institutional reform.
So check out the site, sign the petition, and tell your friends!
Fast enough for government work
Here’s an interesting tidbit my supposed co-blogger Dan Rothschild and I found while crunching numbers on the most recent quarter of stimulus recipient reports. Between the start of the stimulus and the end of the third quarter of 2009 (Sept. 30), recipients reported receiving contract and grant awards totaling $157 billion. The new numbers we looked at are for the last quarter of 2009–from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31. In that period, recipients reported receiving awards for just $13.6 billion.
That’s about a billion dollars awarded per week. At that rate, the government should be done awarding stimulus dollars by 2020. Very stimulating.
Paul Ryan Actively Discouraged Co-Sponsors
Over at Newsweek, Peter Suderman explains why the GOP is ignoring Paul Ryan’s comprehensive health care plan, Roadmap for America’s Future. He notes
“To date, his proposal, which is actually an update of a plan he initially put forth in 2008, has a mere nine cosponsors—mostly conservative stalwarts.”
But I think Suderman is missing the top reason why. Paul Ryan himself actively discouraged co-sponsors of the bill. In June 2008, Ryan spoke to a group of young leaders at the Youth Entitlement Summit, where he freely admitted that the point of the bill was never about getting co-sponsorships or political feasibility. To Ryan, the bill was always about ideas. So he advised his colleagues not to co-sponsor and to stay away.
In many ways, Paul Ryan crusade with the Roadmap is a feat of political courage similar to that of John Sununu and Liddy Dole in 2002. In the 2002 election cycle, national Republicans urged candidates to steer well clear of Social Security. But Sununu and Dole, both in tight races, decided to address Social Security, betting that voters would give them credit for dealing with a tough issue honestly and forthrightly. They both won. This showed other Republicans that you can win on Social Security reform.
I think Ryan’s up to the same thing with the Roadmap. Look past 2010 to 2012. Ryan is trying to show that you can talk about the nation’s dire fiscal situation and present the tough choices on health care entitlements clearly and logically and voters will understand. We should evaluate his success on whether or not Republican presidential candidates pick up the issue and run with it in 2012.
