Voice of the Mid-Columbia | Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Wash. |
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closeRepublicans have chosen a careful, thoughtful legislator to lead their efforts to reform congressional earmarks -- Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington.
She is an excellent choice.
It's a tough task.
These days earmarks enjoy a certain status, as issues go.
To most Americans, earmarks mean waste.
Bridges to nowhere.
Museums for Lawrence Welk.
Practically every road and building in West Virginia.
Lumping earmarks into a broad category of waste or corruption oversimplifies discussion of them.
Their original purpose was to do small-bore federal projects that need not take up the entire attention of Congress.
They ballooned in number and cost as the years rolled past.
But a substantial number of them each year are for extremely worthy projects. In fiscal year 2008, for example, $991,000 was earmarked for preservation of the B Reactor at Hanford. No one around here is going to think that's money wasted, but no one around here would welcome a full-scale congressional debate on B Reactor's future, either.
Similarly, there's a $335,000 earmark for the Deaf Blind Service Center in Seattle. This isn't wasted money. It is intended for a National Support Service Provider Pilot Project.
The program provides visual and environmental information, sighted guide services and information to help deaf-blind individuals make informed decisions, get and keep a job, vote, read mail and travel.
In other words, to participate more fully in society.
Hard to find any waste in that.
McMorris Rodgers will lead a 10-member panel that will look at what the GOP calls the other Washington's "broken spending practices," focusing on pet projects known as earmarks.
Reps. Doc Hastings, Mike Simpson of Idaho and Jeff Flake of Arizona are also on the panel.
Their recommendations are expected by Feb. 16.
House Republican Leader John Boehner of Ohio told The Associated Press the panel will build on earmark reforms already endorsed by Republicans.
Reforms are eminently needed.
But reform is the operative word, not elimination.
It's good to see Republicans taking a serious run at this problem.
Many of the party's most faithful followers have been disheartened by the outgoing administration's drift away from the prudence and fiscal conservatism that marked the GOP for many decades.
This is a welcome move in the proper direction, even as President Bush, President-elect Obama and the nation struggle with an economy that without massive government spending already would have collapsed.
Earmarks are a small -- tiny -- portion of the federal government's budget problems.
And handled wisely, they do an immense amount of good for communities like ours that have needed and worthwhile projects the federal government should fund.
Editorials are the consensus of the Tri-City Herald editorial board.
Editorial board members are Rufus Friday, publisher; Chris Sivula, editorial page editor; Ken Robertson, executive editor; Matt Taylor, contributing editor; Lori Lancaster, editorial writer; Shelly Norman, editorial writer and Jack Briggs, retired publisher
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