I know it's not
exactly news that President Obama signed the $410 billion omnibus budget
measure into law yesterday.
But I did want to mention it, in part
because I wanted to use this cool drawing by Free Pig Art.
As I noted in my earlier post about the budget bill's now unnecessary provision to end private tax debt collection, the IRS got a bit more money in this package.
IRS allocations: The
Treasury Department gets $12.7 billion for fiscal 2009, with $11.5
billion of that going to its bread-and-butter agency, the IRS. That's a
$428 million increase over the IRS' fiscal 2008 amount.
Once the money gets to IRS hands, it's supposed to spend most of it, $5.1 billion,
for enforcement, so double check those returns before you file! Another $2.3
billion goes for taxpayer service, $3.87 billion toward operations support and
$230 million to deal with business systems modernization.
The Treasury's budget also includes $146 million for the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.
Pork protestations:
The budget numbers that got the most attention, however, have to do
with the measure's earmarks, amounts specifically designated by members
of Congress for certain projects.
The
just-enacted law contains, in case you haven't heard, around 8,500
earmarks totaling $7.7 billion. Yes, that is a lot. And on their own, 8,500 and $7.7 billion are big, really big, numbers.
But the outrage also is
a bit excessive.
The dollar amount actually is less than 2 percent of the overall bill. Did
you really want Washington to shut down government again, and that includes offices outside the Beltway, over just 1.88 percent of
the overall budget? Ask Newt Gingrich and his party how closing federal offices worked out for them in 1995.
Do as I say, not as I do: Then there's the hypocrisy of the whole situation.
Some
of the lawmakers who voted against the bill and then got all
self-righteous about doing so actually had their own pet projects in the measure.
They simply took political advantage of grandstanding about earmarks
while fully knowing that the budget, their items included, would
pass.
MSNBC's
First Read blog cites Taxpayer for Common Sense data that shows 28
Senators had a combined 307 solo earmarks totaling nearly $240 million.
Now I'm not saying that we,
Congress and the President included, don't need to learn a lesson or
two (or three or …) about belt tightening. But we also need to admit
that an earmark isn't necessarily a bad thing.
In our personal budgets, we all earmark certain amounts we want to come
up with to make a special project happen. Where eyebrows start being
raised is when you think a particular earmark is ill-advised or
extreme.
Many of
you might gasp at, for example, the $3,000 that hubby and I want to
put aside for a nice vacation, arguing instead that we should earmark
that money for an emergency fund or retirement accounts. We can explain
to you how that amount works for our situation (can you say tax season burnout?) and we'll listen to what you have
to say about why your suggestion is wiser.
Evaluate, don't eliminate: The point is that a blanket end to earmarks isn't the answer. Instead we, and this time I specifically mean Congress and
the President, need to quit bandying about this funny sounding
word and focus on evaluating the types of projects that are funded and
at what amounts.
Maybe
that pig odor research project in Iowa doesn't need $1.7 million, but
I'll guarantee you that folks living downwind of such agricultural
operations will argue just as vociferously that they need at least some
federal help.
Of
course, coming to any sort of mutually agreeable accommodation takes
some civil discourse, a bit of compromise
and an acknowledgment of the type of government we have. We are a
representative system, meaning we elect folks to do our will and a lot
of time that will is to bring home the bacon from a local, now less
smelly pig farm.
So
don't go automatically denouncing some project that's in another state
or Congressional district. Remember that on Capitol Hill, more so
than many other places, one Senator's or Representative's treasure is
another lawmaker's trash.
The goal is to make sure that all such projects have at least some gemstones in them.
