Earmarks: What are they and does South Dakota need some?

By Gordon Garnos

AT ISSUE: An earmark, as far as Congress is concerned, is a reserved amount of money for a specific purpose. The Associated Press, in cooperation with the national Managing Editors Association and various newspapers across the country, are participating in examining the latest batch of earmarks coming out of Washington to congressional constituencies. In spite of calls for reform, the study has found very little change in Capitol Hill behavior.

South Dakota, fortunately or unfortunately, has not had the opportunity to get a lot of them, but the ones we have received have been a boon for many of our communities and counties.

FEDERAL MONEY comes to the states, counties and cities in a variety of forms. Consequently, tracing all the routes is difficult. However, earmarks are usually direct grants from members of Congress to whomever or whatever.
Actually, earmarks are nothing more than another shelve in the pork barrel closet.

Are they all bad? Not hardly. But in a state like South Dakota such gifts from one or all three of our congess-persons are looked at with a jaundiced eye. We often think of ourselves as conservatives and too independent to not need help from anyone.

Still, there are numerous new fire stations, for example across the state that came to being through federal grants of one kind or another. The list is too long for this column to published, but it contains everything from hospital remodeling to bicycle paths. And while a lot of us call ourselves conservatives we haven't rejected any of these gifts from Washington that I know of.

TWO CONGRESSMEN come to mind as holding some kind of records for pork barreling, or securing earmarks for their districts. They were Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia and former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill of Massachusetts. One cannot drive through West Virginia without seeing a number of buildings, bridges, etc., named in Byrd's honor as a result. O'Neill's quest for funds for his state is nothing short of staggering.

South Dakota hasn't been left out of this loop, but the amount of such funds coming here pale to those of such congressmen. However, it seems our people we send to Congress are a little more conservative in this regard than many South Dakotans want them to be.

I particularly recall from 10 years or so ago the call went out for four-lane highways be constructed from Pierre to I-90, Mitchell to Huron and from Aberdeen to the Summit corner on I-29. The squabble sounded like little kids hollering "Me first."

AT THE TIME, then Cong. John Thune walked into a buzz saw in Aberdeen. Three hundred people wanted to know why he didn't include the cost of turning Highway 12 into four lanes between Aberdeen and I-29 at Summit.

As I recall, it seemed that instead he helped designate the $60 million in the House version of the highway spending bill to building the four-laners between Pierre and I-90 and between Mitchell and Huron. The squabble was so ridiculous they even accused Thune of favoring the Pierre to I-90 four-laner because it was close to his hometown of Murdo, (Some 20 miles west of the I-90 intersection) and his second hometown of Pierre.

Thune reasoned the SD Dept. of Transportation set the priority list for these larger roads and the Aberdeen to Summit proposal was third. The priorities were set in order of cost and the Highway 12 project was the most costly by far. The Aberdeen folks didn¹t like that very well. About that time Senator Daschle stepped into the picture and guess what. More money was found for that project.

ONE COULD CALL that pork barreling or earmarking. To me that doesn't make much difference. It was a classic example of power politics.

There's no question that four-laners are safer than two-laners. And while they are safer, they are at least double the price for construction as well as maintenance. Yes. Maintenance. And how does one squeeze more funding to keep up. Perhaps that is what our Governor Mike Rounds is talking about when he is trying to get more dollars into the state's highway fund through the ethanol tax. Both that and the gasoline tax goes into that fund to help build and maintain our highway system.

While the Legislature said, "No" to his proposal of slicing that tax between the various levels of ethanol (No new taxes!) by slicing the existing ethanol tax he may be able to get a few more bucks into that fund and in my way of thinking that isn't a bad idea either.

I sure would like to be a little mouse in the corner when Rounds and the legislative leaders meet over this ethanol tax thing....

Gordon Garnos was long-time editor of the Watertown Public Opinion and recently retired after 39 years with that newspaper. Garnos, a lifelong resident of South Dakota except for his military service in the U.S. Air Force, was born and raised in Presho.