Anyone who has been paying attention to politics, especially presidential politics has been watching or reading the news to see what the candidates and to a lesser extent their respective parties stand for. Unfortunately, aside from how much each candidate has raised and spent, the news doesn’t tell us much. The national polls, which don’t tell anyone a thing about how candidates are fairing on a state by state basis, which is in fact significantly more important, tell us even less. So, like the aforementioned news/political junkies (Anyone who is paying attention to Presidential politics in April of 2007 is a junky), I have been scanning the internet, other blogs and candidate websites for indications of where the candidates stand and what they would do if elected.

After doing so I am left with one overriding question…WHAT’S THE BIG IDEA? What idea, what overarching theme or goal of governance does a candidate believe in that will shape all the decisions that he or she will make in office, what programs will be offered, which of the other parties ideas will be opposed and why? Another way of thinking about this is that perhaps candidates should consider their “legacy” before they are elected instead of two years before the end of their second term. “If I can only accomplish one great goal domestically and one internationally, what should they be and how will I be remembered?”

Instead, we get shopping lists or perhaps more accurately the equivalent of holiday “Wish Lists.” Now, I am not suggesting there aren’t some great things on those lists, but after looking at the roughly 134 people currently running for president, I don’t see any that have been such a good little boy or girl that they are going to find all of their requested items under the world’s Christmas tree at the end of four or even eight years. Maybe they should do what we did in as kids and put ***** next to the things they really really REALLY want. And sorry to say, I don’t think any of our current candidates is getting a pony.

So what is my pony? Domestically, it is putting our fiscal house in order and internationally it is reducing poverty. Now what is wonderful about this debate is that everyone has a different ****** item and a different way to get it. But those are my two; fiscal discipline and an increasingly wealthy world. Without going into a significant amount of detail (Maybe I should be a presidential candidate) I would accomplish the first with significant reductions in spending, modest increases in taxes and a pledge to reduce the National Debt to no more than 20% of GDP. I would accomplish the second by utilizing bilateral and multilateral trade negotiations to increase the flow of goods, capital and labor across borders as well as funding micro-lending in lesser developed countries.

If at the end of their term in office a President could look back having accomplished those two things they would not have to spend any time worrying about their legacy and they would have accomplished a lot of the other things on their wish list or at worst, set up their successor to do so.

The Federal Government has FORGOTTEN HOW TO SPEND OUR MONEY according to a recent article in the Boston Globe, “Spending puzzle for US agencies” Boston Globe 4/15/2007. The end of earmarks leaves no guidance to countless government agencies as to how to spend money appropriated by Congress. “[S]ome agencies had grown so accustomed to money being earmarked in recent years that their own processes for awarding contracts and grants had lapsed.” Some agencies have “gotten flabby. If you don’t exercise a muscle, that’s what happens…you don’t worry about how to competitively fund a program because Congress will tell you that.” Are you kidding me?

In the FY 2006 Federal Budget there were $29.3 billion in Congressional earmarks. Unfortunately, in a $3 Trillion budget that is close to a rounding error but as they say, “A billion here, a billion there and pretty soon you are talking real money.” I guess in my naiveté I would suggest that if these government agencies are unsure of how to spend these monies…DON’T! But of course that can’t happen. The White House directed agencies to use a competitive award system as much as possible. Here’s an idea. If you don’t know exactly what you need to spend money on, DON’T ASK FOR IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Who is to blame for this mess? Unfortunately the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of my fellow Republicans. In 1995 there were 1500 Congressional earmarks; in 2005 there were 14,000. The dollar amount? In 1991 it was $3.1 billion but by 2006 it was the aforementioned $29.3 billion. The comedian Lewis Black calls the Democratic Party the party of No Ideas and the Republican Party the party of Shitty Ideas and earmarks are truly becoming a bipartisan scandal. Perhaps this is what they mean when our Congresspeople and Senators say “We need to work together.”

Sens. Tom Coburn (R) of Oklahoma, John McCain ® of Arizona, Thomas Harper (D) of Delaware and Barack Obama (D) of Illinois cosponsored a bill directing the OMB to create a website showing all recipients of federal grants, contracts and other payments. It was supposed to be free, easy to search and accessible to the public. It passed 98-0. But just as the OMB was prepared to put out this information, it sent word to Capitol Hill that –over its protests—it was being kept under wraps by the White House that wanted to appease the appropriators and not “stir up the Hill.” And while the rule passed 98-0 with Sens. Harry Reid, Robert Byrd and Dick Durbin leading the way and giving speeches on the floor of the Senate, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service got a different message from their new masters on Capitol Hill. CRS on Feb 22 announced that “it will no longer identify earmarks for individual programs, activities, entities or individuals.”

Republicans and Democrats need to remember that the reason they each were voted out of power in Congress was because of the perception of voters that spending was out of control and that there was a culture of corruption on Capitol Hill. Earmarks are an indication of both…and of even deeper problems. Perhaps we need to spend a couple of bucks on a Bridge to Fiscal Sanity and to Accountability.