EARMARKS DISTORT FOREIGN AID PRIORITIES
posted by Laura Peterson, 202-546-8500 ext. 114
December 12, 2007
Those who believe that earmarks’ damage is purely fiscal should listen to 21 policy experts from both sides of the aisle who say earmarking doesn’t just hurt taxpayer pocketbooks, it prevents the government from doing its job.
That’s one of the conclusions of a 200-page report on how to make foreign aid more effective released yesterday by the Congressionally-mandated Helping to Enhance the Livelihood of People around the Globe (HELP) Commission. The panel of economists, business leaders and foreign policy experts direct the U.S. government to “reject cookiecutter plans and programmatic earmarks” because “excessive earmarking and Presidential initiatives frequently reduce resources available for other worthwhile activities and can be disruptive to maintaining coherency of development goals and strategies.”
The report’s criticism backs what we have long argued about the enduring effects of earmarks: Rather than increasing the efficiency and responsiveness of government, in fact earmarks often slow down or obstruct it by creating competing priorities. Officials who direct U.S.-funded assistance programs around the world say that while programs driven by earmarks may not be damaging or useless, they can undermine larger goals by sucking up valuable resources and presenting conflicting messages. Thus we see aid dollars spent on ramps installed to make rural Afghanistan hospitals ADA-compliant, despite the absence of wheelchairs in the area.
Congress began heavily earmarking the foreign assistance budget in the 1980s after signs of corruption surfaced among some recipient organizations. Today, Congress controls funding with numerous “soft” earmarks that “recommend” or “suggest” expenditures on specific programs. The HELP commissioners are not the first to point out the problems this creates: In its 2005 book “Progressive Priorities: An Action Agenda for America,” the Center for American Progress said earmarks “reduce aid effectiveness by predetermining aid priorities, restricting flexibility, and, in some cases, allocating taxpayer dollars to programs that have no relevance to the developing world.” A Washington Post editorial on foreign aid argued in 2006 that earmarking should be “understood for what it is: special-interest lobbying that hardly serves the interests of poor countries.”
The report also recommended that government take a hard look at its procurement and contracting processes. Pointing out that the State Department and USAID are beset by the same manpower shortages as other agencies, the report says too many programs go unevaluated, contracts unwatched, and outcomes ignored. Further, reliance on “umbrella” contracts that “do not provide as full, open, and transparent competition as previous procedures” has resulted in the share of USAID contracts awarded to the top five contractors rising from 33 percent in Fiscal Year 1996 to 52 percent in 2005. Their recommendations echo those heard across the federal government: More contract oversight staff, clearer objectives and commitment to opening multi-year contracts to full competition.
There is some irony in the fact that the HELP Commission was created by an earmark inserted in the Fiscal Year 2004 omnibus spending bill by Frank Wolf (R-VA), who was chairman of what was then called the Science-State-Justice Commerce Appropriations Subcommittee. Yet it helps make the point that not all earmarks are pernicious, especially ones that actually carry out Congresses’ mandate to increase oversight rather than just handing out dollars to constituents and supporters. Now it falls again to Congress to implement the report’s recommendations and stop the gratuitous earmarking that impedes foreign aid’s mission of improving the lives of others around the world. |
