Congressman Rob Wittman (R-VA01) has decided that he will no longer consider submitting earmarks, says Virginia Virtucon.
Under his new policy which went into effect in December, the only earmarks that he will request will be for national defense and he must first receive a request from the federal agency seeking it before he will even consider submitting it. All localities within the First District have now been notified as to the change as such requests from them will no longer be considered.
Frankly, when I first saw this on VV, I was quite surprised that Wittman would take such an action – after all, earmarks can be, when done correctly, a very principled way of fighting for funding for a district.
“We simply can’t carve out a portion of the budget for a particular entity anymore,” wrote Tom Crosson, Wittman’s spokesman. “We will however be working to secure grant funding as well as finding other avenues to bring dollars to the 1st outside of the earmark process. Grants are the way most of the science and technology groups in our district receive dollars currently.”
Wittman is not alone, however, as several other congressmen have made the same pledge, including Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Colburn, as well as Representatives Paul Ryan, Joe Wilson, Jim Sensenbrenner, Marsha Blackburn, Dan Burton, among others.
The question is is this effective, principled policy or putting your district at a disadvantage?
Additionally, our Congress has operated this way for nearly 210 years. If we believe that the Founders were right in how they set this system up, is tinkering with the appropriations process the right thing to do when you consider small states checking larger states, etc.?
