Comments on: Closing the Earmarks Favor Factory http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/closing_the_earmarks_favor_factory_/ Online Journal of Politics and Foreign Affairs Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:25:43 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Dave Schuler http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/closing_the_earmarks_favor_factory_/comment-page-1/#comment-255873 Dave Schuler Sat, 22 Dec 2007 14:30:18 +0000 http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/archives/2007/12/closing_the_earmarks_favor_factory_/#comment-255873 Keeping things in perspective if 100% of earmarks were removed from spending it would hardly make a dent in total federal government spending. While earmarks constitute an enormous amount of money by the standards of ordinary folks like you and me, as a proportion of the budget they're small potatoes and looked at that way by Congress as a small price to keep the folks back home happy. The real Big Enchiladas of federal government spending are (in order) Social Security,debt service, and defense while Medicare is the fastest growing. Over the last 5 years there's also been a big bump in “other” spending so that it constitutes a big section of the whole. It's pretty hard to track down but most of the increase is Homeland Security. BTW, in terms of government spending i.e. not just federal government spending the biggest item is education. Keeping things in perspective if 100% of earmarks were removed from spending it would hardly make a dent in total federal government spending. While earmarks constitute an enormous amount of money by the standards of ordinary folks like you and me, as a proportion of the budget they're small potatoes and looked at that way by Congress as a small price to keep the folks back home happy.

The real Big Enchiladas of federal government spending are (in order) Social Security,debt service, and defense while Medicare is the fastest growing. Over the last 5 years there's also been a big bump in “other” spending so that it constitutes a big section of the whole. It's pretty hard to track down but most of the increase is Homeland Security.

BTW, in terms of government spending i.e. not just federal government spending the biggest item is education.

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