What's All the Beef About the Pork?.x000d.Congressional Earmarking and Its Economic and Political Significances.

This paper seeks to accomplish the following: (1) provide a brief history of the evolution of earmarking within the federal government’s budgetary process, (2) explain the reasons for the current public salience of earmarks, (3) address the arguments surrounding the ethics debate on earmarks, (4) examine the recent politicization of earmarks, and (5) discuss the implications of the present and possible future actions taken on earmarks, including a possible major Constitutional crisis over the separation of powers in Washington. The empirical evidence suggests that current political posturing, media-focused attention and public concern over earmark reform is based on incomplete information; when comparing all federal budget spending programs and their effects both on the budget and society, earmarks really are much-ado-about-nothing, or at least very little. Yet, because earmarks function in what former Justice William Douglas might refer to as the “penumbra” of the legislative process they are an easy populist and political target for criticism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]