Dave Sirota raises an important and, frankly, scary issue hidden in the zealous efforts to reform Congressional spending. If we yield to our desire to get this issue taken care of quickly, we will get results we don't want at all -- a huge increase in Executive powers. To wit:
... Earmark "reform," if done overzealously, is just one huge power grab by the executive branch over the last true power that Congress still retains: the power of the purse.
A Boston Globe article from 2005 gives us a frightening glimpse of what such a power grab might mean in the future. Usurping Congress's power of the purse would give presidents - especially aggressively partisan ones like George W. Bush - even more ability than described by this article to target federal funds on the basis of their political ambitions....The question is whether you have congressional earmarking whereby elected officials get to decide how money is spent, or you have executive branch earmarking whereby unelected appointees get to decide how money is spent? There is going to be politicization in both - the question is who should be vested with that political power?
