Sunday, October 13, 2013
Ostrem ch.8 question 7
I learned about earmarks and how politician's use them. When Charles Wheelan was running for Congressman he was asked at the candidates' forum to explain his views on earmarks. An earmark targets government money to be used to fund a specific project in a politician's district. It is somewhat of a controversial subject. This is because politician will often find earmarks (money to fund projects in their district) to gain votes and popularity from their people and supporters. The project doesn't necessarily have to make economic sense. All of the candidates at the forum were against the idea of using earmarks until they were corned by the moderator who asked them if they would be in favor of an earmark that funded the children's hospital. The candidates changed their answers and said that the children's hospital was an exception to their anti-earmark philosophy. Charles Wheelan summed it up at the end of the paragraph when he said "Everyone despises earmarks, except for their own"(Wheelan 189).
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What suprised me the most was when he wrote about the Alaska bridge earmark! It is insane that someone can promise to built a bridge to Alaska so that he would win some elections
ReplyDeleteI agree with your blog post. Earmarks don't make much sense, and I think they are only a tool of power. It isn't right and can put the wrong people in power, but it is unfortunately engrained into politics. Viva la Revolution!
ReplyDeleteI think it is rather strange that earmarks are something to be discussed, it seems to be that earmarks would be a given, just that frivolity of said earmarks should be examined.
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