Restoring Earmarks Is Probably a Good Thing

Jonathan Bernstein notes that bringing back earmarks comes with real benefits but only minor disadvantages:

“The downsides are even more marginal. Earmarks are budget-neutral — they offer instructions about how to disburse money that is already being appropriated — not new funding. In a way, they do add an arbitrary element to government spending, giving advantages to those lawmakers who sit on key committees or otherwise have the ability to bargain for them. Those who think spending should be purely by formula might not like that. But defenders of earmarks will point out that government spending formulas are never neutral or nonpolitical, and that direct decisions by the people’s representatives are a more democratic way of allocating funds than turning the decision over to the bureaucracy.”