Over at Tapped, Mark Schmitt makes the partisan case against earmarks:For the moment, Republicans are far more dependent than Democrats on their ability to take some credit for federally funded projects. In the world with earmarks, Lindsay Graham is able to stand against the president on stimulus, on the budget, on Iraq, on health care. And then he's able to go home, cut a ribbon, get his picture in the paper, and tell everyone that he delivered the money for the new Myrtle Beach Convention Center.But in a world without earmarks, what does Lindsay Graham bring home? Just words, and great stories about how he fought bravely against health care and economic stimulus.Whereas a Democrat in a world without earmarks will be able to go home, ideally, and tell her constituents that she supported a popular president, that she helped rescue the economy, that she's moving us toward universal health care.Congress works on two levels -- a game of big decisions with lasting consequences, and a small-ball game, mainly concentrated in Appropriations. The big game has become almost entirely partisan, and for the moment almost all the Republicans are opting out of it entirely, just as they did in 1993, whereas the small-ball game has always been indifferent to party and ideology. Anyone can play -- even those who claim to denounce it. (That's partly a matter of Appropriations-Committee custom and partly just that in a system with ten thousand small favors to be exchanged, there's room for everyone.) The small-ball game, being "Senator Pothole," is a form of protection for legislators who can't or won't participate in the bigger decisions.Take away the small-ball game, of which earmarks are a significant part, and Republican members of Congress and Senators face a bit of a dilemma: Are they really willing to spend 2009 and 2010, years of extraordinary hardship for their constituents, with nothing positive to boast about? And if they aren't, it's one more reason to expect that they might rethink their reflexive policy of massive resistance to the Obama agenda.
One thing I've always wondered: How much can it possibly matter when Lindsey Graham cuts the ribbon on the Myrtle Beach Convention Center or Pat Roberts boasts of the new radios he secured for Topeka's emergency responders? How many dozens of his constituents can possibly be aware of that achievement? Meanwhile, John McCain refuses to earmark and keeps getting reelected. Indeed, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, 56 members of Congress requested no earmarks at all. A quick glance at the names -- Bachmann, Shadegg, Cantor, Cooper, Ryan -- doesn't unearth a lot of vulnerability. So, electorally speaking, do earmarks matter? Has any political scientist tried to quantify the percentage boost in the polls that comes from every million or so in appropriations?
