The Bear Strikes Back
Max Sawicky opens his limp attack on the Porkbusters movement by passionately declaring “To an industrial-strength liberal like me, any waste of public funds is of profound concern.” Max then proceeds to spend the remainder of his piece framing an exception to that bold statement that seems to boil down to “except any waste of public funds identified by Porkbusters, because they’re evil tools of the military-industrial complex.”
No, really. That’s what he said — I’m not creative enough to make this stuff up:
“…the so-called “porkbuster” movement is not really motivated by an interest in government efficiency, but by a deeper hostility to the public sector in all its works but one – the defense establishment. (A genuine conservative named Dwight D. Eisenhower called it the “military-industrial complex,” and labeled it a grave danger to the republic.)”
(Somewhere, a liberal angel just got their wings, as is known to happen any time a lefty invokes Dwight Eisenhower to decry the military-industrial complex).
OK, so he didn’t actually use the word “evil”, but he did imply we were part of a “grave danger to the Republic”, which is arguably even better. Come to think of it, that might have to replace our favorite Trent Lott quote on the Porkbusters page header. “Porkbusters: A Grave Danger To the Republic” — it has a certain ring to it, to be sure. Someone call CafePress and update our t-shirts.
Anyway, this is the spot where I’d include my own rebuttals to Max’s arguments as to why he feels Porkbusters is an ETOTMIC (Evil Tool Of The Military Industrial Complex). But, er… he doesn’t actually make any, and certainly doesn’t even attempt to provide any evidence to suggest Porkbusters favors earmarks that benefit the defense establishment. I’m going to take a wild guess here, so bear with me: the reason he doesn’t present any evidence is because none exists.
Porkbusters is about fighting earmarks, or more precisely, the gawd-awful, opaque, corrupt processes that are currently used to create them. It’s not about applying one set of rules to Earmarks We Like, and another set to Earmarks We Don’t Like. It is about working to improve the process across the board in ways that open up our legislative process to all citizens, so that we can collectively assure ourselves that our government is spending our money in responsible ways.
And take note: this isn’t a strictly conservative idea. You can very easily take the position that earmarks (and in particular, secret earmarks) are a bad thing, and still want to increase federal spending on programs you think are good things. That is entirely the point, in fact: Porkbusting is about eliminating waste and ensuring transparency, so that then we can have intelligent discussion and debate about what programs we should be spending our money on.
“But N.Z.,” Max might decry (if he were even really trying to advance an argument), “Porkbusters has never ever done a major effort to highlight earmarks in a defense bill! I’ve caught you out red-handed, you fiend. Victory is mine!”
To which I answer (twirling my moustache in an appropriately sinister manner): er, yeah. But we’ve also never done a major effort on Agriculture earmarks. Or Education earmarks. Or virtually any other specific type of earmarks. The one exception being a push we made on Health and Human Services earmarks, which frankly didn’t go all that far, but was selected not because we hate HHS, but because the bill happened to be a slow-moving target that we were able to get data on and the timing was right.
Which bring up an important point to keep in mind if you want to throw accusations at Porkbusters along the lines of “you haven’t spent time on X, and that proves you’re an X-loving, Y-hating tool of the Z establishment.” The “official” Porkbusters movement — i.e., Porkbusters.org — consists of two guys. Glenn Reynolds, whose idea it was in the first place, and me. That’s it. Not only have we never taken any public funding for our efforts, we’ve never taken a single dime of donations from anyone, anywhere.
We have no organization, no staff, no funding (and yes, that means Glenn and I pay for server expenses and the like out of our own pockets). We’ve just got an idea, and a lot of folks across the blogosphere and in other fine groups like Citizens Against Government Waste and The Sunlight Foundation (and many more) who tend to agree with us. Neither I nor Glenn can afford to devote our every waking hour to Porkbusters, but we can afford to devote some of them — or at least, we choose to, whether we can afford to or not. So Max, if you’re not happy that we haven’t focused on any Defense related earmarks, here’s an offer for you: next time a big Defense appropriations bill with pork in it comes around, if you’ll volunteer to do the work on it, we’ll gladly host the effort at Porkbusters and promote it.
Returning to Max’s lamentation, he complains:
“The most conspicuous delusion promulgated by the Porkbusters has to do with scale. Congressional earmarks are said to be a huge drain of resources. When you are dealing with large and unfamiliar numbers, however, “compared to what?” is the salient question.”
Sigh. Pork makes up a tiny percentage of our overall spending! Stop the presses, this is a real newsflash. Oh, but wait, where have I heard this before? Ah yes, from folks like Andrew Sullivan and Pontifex Ex Machina. In 2005.
Glad you could join us, Max! And so sorry to wake you.
Conveniently, since this argument was asked-and-answered way-back-then in 2005, a bit of cutting and pasting is all I need here to provide Max his needed refresher course:
“Yes, the amounts of pork we’re identifying are chump change in comparison to the overall fiscal fiasco that we call the federal budget. But the exact dollar amounts saved by trimming specific pork projects aren’t the point.
To me, the point is to take a step — a small one, granted — towards a culture of greater fiscal responsibility in Washington. If we can hold our representatives on Capitol Hill accountable for the small bits of pork, then perhaps that example will also make them think twice about the larger boondoggles that plague our government.”
Now, does that look like I’m “promulgating” the “delusion” that earmarks are a huge drain of resources compared to the overall budget? Methinks not. (Although “Porkbusters: Promulgating the Delusion Since 2005″ also has a nice ring to it. Damn, I may have to send Max a cut of our T-shirt revenues.)
But beyond his nitpicking over the dead-and-buried horse of that particular argument, Max also conveniently ignores (or is willfully ignorant of) the fact that Porkbusters is not simply about earmarks. We also focus our efforts on transparency and openness in government — most notably with the “secret hold” campaign that directly resulted in the passage of The Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (aka Coburn/Obama) ,which requires that all federal spending be placed online in a searchable database accessible to all citizens.
Of the secret hold effort, then Majority Leader Bill Frist had this to say:
“Without the hard work of men and women like Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, Mark Tapscott of the Examiner Editorial Board, Ed Morrissey of Captain’s Quarters, NZ Bear of Truth Laid Bear, Robert Bluey on Human Events, Liz Mair of GOP Progress, and Paul Kiel of TPM Muckraker (to name but a few), this legislation would likely never have received the President’s signature. And, with their continued efforts, I’m confident that the database created today will help keep Washington’s addiction to wasteful spending in check.”
Max would be well advised to note the inclusion of Paul Kiel on Senator Frist’s list. Paul and his colleagues and readers at TPM Muckraker were indeed a vital part of the campaign, because they recognized that transparency in government spending is not a right-vs-left issue.
And guess what: when folks on the left and folks on the right recognize that efforts like this are indeed in the national interest — rather than, oh, say, flinging around accusations about people being in the pocket of the defense establishment — things can actually get done. Coburn/Obama was a huge step, and we’ll start seeing the impact of it in 2008 when the database comes online. I’m proud of what we achieved there, and of what Porkbusters has accomplished overall. So Max: keep on writing columns. Me, I’ll just keep working with all my friends and allies in the Porkbusters movement to actually do something to change the way our country and our government works.
NZB, Sawicky’s piece was simply a load. I made this comment on PJM: “Defending the undefendable is lousy work, but someone always volunteers to do it.”
Max, you got served.
Max is just an old Marxist who still has problems adapting to the 21st century.
Max is a “liberal economist”? Isn’t that an oxymoron?
Mr Bear’s response to my column begins inauspiciously, with a made-up quote of cartoon leftspeak (the “evil tool” bit). Later on, there is a second exercise in creative license, also with inappropriate quotation marks, that I said porkbusters were a “grave danger to the Republic.” Besides being manufactured, the quotes distract from the main thrust of my argument: the “Porkbusters” don’t know what pork is. They have no substantive criteria for identifying government waste.
So Bear’s whole premise is a distraction. But since he elevates it, I’m happy to unpack a little bit in that direction. Our chief porkbusters are prominent enthusiasts for our excellent adventure in Iraq, one whose prodigious waste of money is all but obscured by the human tragedies it presents every day.
The Eisenhower phrase has become a cliche. But I saw the actual speech for the first time a few months ago, and it is pretty chilling. Listen to the whole thing. Heh.
Is this a fair connection? I didn’t milk it very much in the column, but here’s why I think it is. A well-founded concern for waste and mismanagement in government would properly dwell on defense procurement (including earmarks), not superfluous exit ramps in Indiana. The issue here is not the level of detail provided, which Bear attributes to limited resources. It’s the basic theme of the campaign.
Now Bear says he is interested in “eliminating waste and ensuring transparency” (that’s a real quote). In my piece I explicitly endorsed the transparency facet of the porkbuster campaign, as I have in the past on my own site. But it is hard to escape the conclusion that porkbusters is really more ambitious and ideological: to take on “the overall fiscal fiasco that we call the federal budget.” What does that mean? Government, it bad, except when building nations in sandy places.
Getting back to my column, as any neutral reading would agree, the actual focus of my argument, meaning the stuff that has the most words attached — whether you buy it or not — is threefold:
1. The pork obsession glosses over the minor role of pork in the budget, now and in the future. What somebody said back in 2005 is irrelevant, like the small print on the bottom of those drug advertisements.
2. The purportedly neutral generality glosses over the predominant roles of defense and tax pork.
3. Most important: the pork discussion fails to identify pork. They can find items that look silly, that probably are silly, as well as a lot of stuff that might or might not be worthwhile.
In the interests of pissing off even more people, I will reference an argument made by former Congressional Budget Office director Robert Reischauer: (paraphrasing, not quoting directly) the onus against government spending has the perverse effect of generating a greater volume of earmarks including dubious activities. The reason is that open public debate about spending priorities tends to get squashed by incoherent rants about big government, so the political itch of public officials, interest groups, and the electorate gets scratched by routing more money through the back door of earmarks.
To reduce government waste, support constructive debate on government spending.
Max said:
To reduce government waste, support constructive debate on government spending.
Max, isn’t it clear that that is one of the goals of PorkBusters?
You are apparently blind to the wasteful spending that is not military spending?
Are you rejecting Bear’s invitation for you to devote your energy to a constructive activity, such as blogging about wasteful military spending?
It looks like your motivation is derived from being convinced that since PorkBusters is not focused on wasteful military spending, then Porkbusters must be a disingenuous attempt at fiscal responsibility.
I really don’t see the connection, perhaps because I am not so preoccupied by the military-industrial complex.
Max, isn’t it clear that that is one of the goals of PorkBusters?
Not to me. If it was I wouldn’t have written about this repeatedly.
You are apparently blind to the wasteful spending that is not military spending?
Not at all. I’ve written about that too.
Are you rejecting Bear’s invitation for you to devote your energy to a constructive activity, such as blogging about wasteful military spending?
I don’t need an invitation.
It looks like your motivation is derived from being convinced that since PorkBusters is not focused on wasteful military spending, then Porkbusters must be a disingenuous attempt at fiscal responsibility.
No, I spent the bulk of the column explaining why the PBs don’t know what pork is.
QuickRob, if Max did want to blog about wasteful military spending, he couldn’t because it would raise scrutiny on other earmark spending he deems reasonable. Let’s remember, as he answered in the comments of his last post, he wants to nationalize a few things like education, “anti-poverty” (SS not good enough for ya?) and the medical industry. He’s quite the Hugo.
I also said I would assign more infrastructure and education to the states, but don’t let that stop you from launching your zinger.
I am honored to be compared to Victor Hugo, the great French novelist. Or do you mean the great Hugo Gernsback? Or is it the Human Genome Organization? You are too kind.
Max is defining “pork” for us.
When I think about what pork is, I sometimes can’t even imagine what is is. it *IS* so confusing.
I thought pork was wasteful government spending. You know, like building a bridge that’s not needed just to pay someone to build it. That kind of pork.
$19 billion = chump change
Not in my world
As Mr. Bear mentions above, there are numerous foundations, organizations and websites dedicated to fighting earmarks and pork barrel spending. In all my searching I have not found any in favor of them…excluding Senator Reid, Speaker Pelosi, Senator Stevens (R-AK) or house and/or senate.gov.
Also, as Dr. Sawicky pointed out…”what’s the big deal? It is only 19 billion a year.” Well as (okay I can’t remember who said it) was said…”A billion here. A billion there. Pretty soon you are talking real money.”
It was Sen. Dirksen of IL who said that, Brad, but since it was so long ago, he used million not billion.
If y’all want to eliminate a government agency that unnecessarily duplicates the functions of other departments and won’t even reveal its own personnel roster, budget, or activities, try the Office of the Vice President.
Smaller government, anyone?
Now there’s an idea. While we’re at it, let’s do away with any government funding of Think Tanks or other 501c3 groups whose funding is derived in part from government agencies.
Fewer lobbyists anyone?
Fine with me. My outfit gets no gov $$$.
That’s not what the EPI website says.
Who supports EPI?
EPI is a 501(c)(3) corporation. A majority of its funding (about 60% in 2001) was received through grants from foundations. EPI also receives support from individuals, corporations, labor unions, government agencies, and other organizations.
We have received a smidgeon of gov money in the past. Currently we get none.