The Conservative Case For Earmarks

By Kleinheider Posted on April 24, 2008 at 7:02 am

Jim Antle and Richard Spencer urge conservatives to ignore earmarks and “go hunting where the ducks are”:

If conservatives are serious about cutting spending and members of Congress are equally committed to bringing home the bacon, consider this modest proposal: Give them their earmarks in exchange for slashing everything else.

Members of Congress would get to fund their lobster institute or favorite salmon fishery. Conservatives could focus on the other 99 percent of spending, where the real savings can be found. Didn’t Barry Goldwater tell us to go hunting where the ducks are?

Sure, it would be better if taxpayers in Anchorage paid for their own bridges rather than foisting the bill on some unsuspecting family in Peoria or another congressional district with less seasoned representation. But politics is the art of the possible. No matter where a bridge goes, it doesn’t cost anywhere nearly as much as an entitlement program.

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