Argumentative Essay On Earmarks

People tend to look out for themselves and what better way to do that than to hold the great power of lawmaking. With that being said, congressmen are reelected every two years. In order to keep getting reelected, congressmen apply the strategy of pork barreling. Pork barreling is a process where congressmen make changes based on investments versus new legislation. For example, they might consider building dams, installing new sewage plants, or improving infrastructure. Federal projects like these have a direct, positive impact that citizens observe right away. However, if a congressman votes on a civil rights issue, a citizen may have trouble relating those efforts to themselves. Therefore, congressmen choose to spend money on their districts in order to get

This diminishes the potential of an elitist concentration developing in the congress. By providing each politician (whose is significant enough to qualify for such funding) an equal amount of funding to use to campaign during an election, the frugality of limited resources will cause the funds to be spent deliberately, appealing to people through a political platform and message, and not due to behemoth largesse employed to win elections. According to author of Welfare for Politicians?: Taxpayer Financing of Campaigns John Samples, “Fundraising success correlates strongly with electoral success. In 2002, 95 percent of House winners raised more than their opponents. In 2004, more than 95 percent of House winners outspent their

The controversy surrounding political lobbying does not question the act of influencing public officials, but rather the ethics relating to how these public officials are influenced. It is important to distinguish the fine line between bribery and lobbying. It is illegal to bribe a public official in the United States. This would mean that an individual could not provide compensation to a public official for them to behave, or vote, in a specific manner. Lobbyists may donate money to a specific candidate’s political campaign, but they may only do so when there is no expectation that the public official will behave in a favorable way toward the lobbyist or their clients (Mackinder). Lobbyists may bring public officials, their immediate families, and staff on trips or out to dinner. While it is illegal for a lobbyist representing a corporate client from directly bringing, it is not illegal for foreign governments to sponsor for these said trips (Goldmacher). What has begun to happen is lobbyists representing corporate clients may bring public officials on these trips, if the trip is sponsored by a foreign government. The Senate Office of Public Records reported that $3.23 billion was spent on lobbying in 2013, with 12,300 registered lobbyists. Professor James Thurber, who teaches at American University, has studied congressional lobbying for over 30 years, and does not believe these figures are accurate. He believes

Members of Congress are voted to office by their electorate as their representatives at the congress level of democracy. In their capacity, they may decide to exercise their powers by the will of the people or according to their personal judgment. When the members of Congress opt to be the people’s delegate, their actions in the House and other congressional engagements are a reflection of the will of their district. As such, the delegate representative does not have or exercise the autonomy to represent and decide for their district. Instead, a strenuous consultation process is required to keep the people in control of all relevant decisions.

Many controversial topics have surfaced recently, but one that tends to fly under the radar is lobbying. Lobbying is defined as a group of persons who work or conduct a campaign to influence members of a legislature to vote according to a group’s special interests (“Lobby”). Although average citizens are not fully aware of the issue, it is quite contentious in politics. For those who are against it, they believe that restrictions should be placed on lobbying because it distorts democracy. Lobbyists use money and cost-effective strategies to sway the opinions of lawmakers. Others see lobbyists as effective, political tour guides who help pass legislation. An analysis of the lobbying process reveals the outcomes are often

This means they will likely raise money in any way possible to increase their chances of winning. This leads many members of Congress to give less consideration to the needs of low-income individuals when developing legislation. Since these low-income individuals do not have the means to give large amounts of money to re-election campaigns, their views are often ignored. Many members of Congress endorse legislation that would benefit their largest donors. This leads to a Congress that is not a true representative of the broad interests across the United States (Flavin 2015).

Golden discusses many different problems of the legislative branch. One of the first things he talks about is the four defects, and the three effects of the defects. He refers to this as the 4-3. The first defect he talks about is the money flood. This is arguably one of the biggest defects of the legislature. While the three other defects only affect the House of Representatives or the Senate, the money flood affects all 535 members (Golden 2015). Most of the money raised by these members is paid by special interests groups, and all the money they receive is legal. In 2012 the money the House and Senate raised was more than $1.8 billion, and special interest groups accounted for $400 million of that (Golden 2015). This is scary because it means that politicians have to spend more of their time negotiating with small amounts of people who are able to give large sums of money, rather than most of the American public who can only afford to donate small amounts of money. This is alarming because it implicates them

Ronald J. Pestritto stated that the Congress refuses to control the power of the purse and the willingness to use the tools. So one of his solutions was to use the appropriation process to make the bureaucrats show them some respect and another way is, “to stop acting as if the Supreme Court gets a monopoly on interpreting the Constitution.” as stated by Ronald J. Pestritto. One problem stated by Terry Moe is, “members of congress have very distinctive incentives and those incentives are rooted in their states and their districts and what they need to do to get reelected and the kinds of things you can think of that would make the government more effective are not what’s motivating them.” The ultimate problem that Terry Moe stated was the constitution itself. His solutions are seeking out small constitutional changes that has big pay outs and moving Congress to the outer limits of lawmaking process, with the president in the centre with

With the introduction of “soft” money in politics, elections no longer go to the best candidate, but simply to the richer one. Soft money is defined as unregulated money that is given to the political parties that ends up being used by candidates in an election. In last year’s elections, the Republican and Democratic parties raised more than one-half of a billion dollars in soft money. Current politicians are pushing the envelope farther than any previous administrations when it comes to finding loopholes in the legal system for campaign fundraising. The legal limit that any one person can contribute to a given candidate or campaign is one thousand dollars. There is, however, no limit on the amount of money one

Wayne, Lasser, Miller and others tend to agree that lobbyists and PACs have a great amount of influence over congress members because they may have direct connections and give campaign contributions. Recently, the airlines industry convinced congress to pass a $15 billion aid package it needs in order to survive. “The airlines had plenty of resources to draw on: 27 in-houses lobbyists, augmented by lobbyists from 42 Washington firms, including former White House aides and transportation secretaries, as well as the airlines own chief executives and corporate board members, whom all are well known in the halls of congress”(Wayne, NYT, 10/01/01. Lasser, American Politics, 1999. Miller, The American Prospect, 10/23/00. Geiger, Washington Post, 11/4-10/91.)

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said, "You take the earmarks away and guess what? All of a sudden people are beginning to look at the real policy behind it” (Eilperin and Sullivan). He missed earmarks, because he believed that they made it so much easier to pass legislation. Although earmarks were introduced to make it easier to pass legislation in Congress, it has done just the opposite. Earmarks are a very inefficient tool to pass legislation that needs to be re-authorized every year. Since Congress has many of these kinds of legislation,

Debates about the just and proper financing of campaigns for public office can be traced as far back as the Federalist Papers. On one side are those that believe any restriction in the frequency or amount of individual, corporate or union donations is an unconstitutional assault on the freedom of (political) expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. On the other side are those that worry about the fair stewardship of elections. Do those with the means to make more

Some interest groups have so much power that a congressperson could care more about the group than the people. The interest groups give money to the candidates and cause them to focus on pleasing them rather than the people. “The Politicians only come back to us when they want to win elections, and after they win, they are beholden to the special interest groups.” (Source 5) The politicians do not always go to the people.

As several authors this week contend, lobbying tends to carry a negative connotation in everyday language. The key issues that the authors seek to address this week, are when lobbying occurs, the nature of lobbying, and how it works. Overall, there is some agreement on the fact that lobbying is prevalent, the disagreements arise over what purpose lobbying serves, and what the strategies underlying lobbying are.

Campaign spending can have a critical influence on legislative outcomes, even if it doesn’t actually have an outsize impact on election outcomes. As long as candidates believe that spending gets them re-elected, this spending will influence how they vote in legislative battles once in congress. Campaign finance is at the very heart of complaints about elections. Money and its potentially corrupting influence are at the very heart of complaints about politics in the United States, and every two years, many candidates promise voters that they’ll try to reform a system that they say has been broken by congressional inaction and the Supreme Court. At their core, democratic elections are a battle of personalities and ideas, and