What’s an ‘earmark?’ It’s a special little provision that gives a contract – or other favor – to a specific company, industry, or locality. A congressman might insert a little provision awarding a $100,000 contract, for example, to one of his constituent companies. Directly or indirectly, the company may have contributed $50,000 to the congressman’s re-election campaign…or may be ready to hire him if he is booted out of office…or may have hired his son or daughter. The amount is so small that the rest of the Congress is not going to pay much attention to it. Besides, other members of Congress are doing the same thing. Ten thousand earmarks…that’s more than 20 apiece.
Giving out money to friends and supporters is not exactly what Congress was set up to do. A Congressional Ethics panel was organized to investigate. Its report just came in this week. What did it find? That there was no impropriety; it was just business as usual!
Uh, politicians investigating politicians. Result? No problems here.
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