Norm Dicks, the Northwest's Earmark King
Budget "earmarks" are considered by many the key gauge of wasteful government spending on pet projects, like Alaska's famous "bridge to nowhere." Seniority has its privileges. Tacoma's Norm Dicks, a 15-term Democrat, ranks sixth among congressmen with the most earmarks, raking in $44 million last year.
As the Democratic-controlled US Senate moved last week toward passing a bill that would introduce greater transparency in the use of earmarks to appropriate funds for local projects, an interesting Washington sidelight cropped up.
An article in The New York Times [table accompanying article not available online] reported that Representative Norm Dicks (D-District 6) ranks among the top Democrats in the House of Representatives in pulling in money for his constituency through earmarks. This year, he has placed 33 separate earmarks worth a total of $44,025,000.
Earmarks are individual funding mandates attached to spending bills that direct funds to specific projects rather than allowing executive agencies to disburse them at will. Because the process by which earmarks are appended to bills has historically been murky and secretive, earmarks are seen by many government watchdogs and reformers as an invitation to corruption. Others argue that the process is frivolous, allowing legislators to attach funds for pet projects to important spending bills. Earmarks are the primary component of the kind of federal spending labelled as "pork" by detractors. The total value of earmarks ballooned from $219 million in 1994 to $16.8 billion in 2005.
The debate is not entirely one-sided; some see the process as a way to get around cumbersome bureaucracies and to ensure funding for undervalued or ignored issues. In this age of tax cuts, moreover, earmarks are a way for representatives to keep local services from suffering under budgetary pressures.
Additionally, legislators see earmarks as a way of proving their worth and keeping constituents happy by bringing in a consistent flow of federal funds. As the Times reports, new rules in the House designed to ensure greater transparency to the process may have actually provided an incentive for legislators to earmark funds; while good-government activists may decry the practice, representatives are happy to announce their successes in bringing money to their districts.
Dicks, who represents Washington's 6th District encompassing the Olympic Peninsula, Kitsap County and Tacoma, has been successful in large part due to positions on key committees. He is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, the most powerful funding body in the House. He also sits on the Defense, Interior and Environment, and Military Construction/Veterans appropriations subcommittees. These posts enable him to wield great power in representing a district encompassing troubled Hood Canal, naval bases at Bremerton and Bangor, and large military populations.
Many of Dicks' earmarks reflect the nature of his district: $200,000 for studying oxygen overloads in the Hood Canal, $2.5 million for wastewater treatment in areas currently relying on septic tanks, $1.5 million towards the purchase of a fast passenger-only ferry to ply the route between Bremerton and Seattle, and millions of dollars in various appropriations for naval research and development. Dicks also placed numerous agricultural earmarks, frequently teaming up with eastern Washington representative Doc Hasting (R-District 4) in a display of bipartisan comity. Spreadsheets with listings of earmarks in all major spending bills this year can be found online on the site of the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
Dicks' earmarks, for the most part, do not appear to be frivolous, though military appropriations in particular can be hard to judge. Part of the problem with earmarks is that pressing local problems, such as oxygenation in the Hood Canal, can seem quaint or impossible to comprehend from a national perspective. Nonetheless, many argue that the increased reliance of lawmakers on earmarks has had a corrupting effect on the federal budgeting process, encouraging legislators to jockey for an advantage in bringing as much funding as possible to their districts without concern for the broader fiscal picture.
In any case, attempts so far to rein in the process appear to have done nothing to cut the enthusiasm of lawmakers for earmarks. Judging from Dicks' longevity -- he has spent 30 years in the House -- his constituents seem to be pleased with his efforts.
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Comments:
Posted Thu, Aug 9, 3:10 p.m. inappropriate
Dicks is a Jackson Military-Industrial Complex Democrat: That was great back when we were fighting the Cold War, but now it means pork-barrel politics and earmarks for military projects everywhere including our misguided Iraq war. IMHO, that's why the U.S. is so reluctant to wash its hands of Iraq: the military-industrial complex's full employment program needs wars to justifiy its existence. Well, we got 'em. And Washington State has more than it's fair share of defense-related jobs.
I'd guess that three-quarters of our military budget is just pure political pork. Scoop Jackson was good at getting the pork flowing to Boeing and Washington State, and Dicks has refined the art. Jackson wasn't called the Senator from Boeing for nothing. Dicks represents Everett, where Boeing is the major employer and the Navy has a home port. So military inflows are plenty. Earmarks are easy. Pork barrel spending for Boeing and the home port is easy. I'd prefer that he did a whole lot LESS for his district, because by being such a excellent marker of ears, he enables not just his local version of pork-barrel politics, but also helps to justify and enable the vast network of similar waste that occurs in other states by other local politicians in the name of defense.
By the way, if you count Trident submarines at Bangor, Washington State is the third most powerful nuclear state behind Russia and Georgia (the U.S. version, not the former Soviet republic). Forget North Korea and Iran, Washington State can wipe out the world with the best of them. Given the sorry state of U.S. foreign affairs, one ponders whether it might not be better for the world if Washington State were to secede and take its nuclear capability with it. Dick's would be the logical head of such a state...
Posted Thu, Aug 9, 8:01 p.m. inappropriate
Dicks represents Everett: No, he doesn't.
Posted Fri, Aug 10, 10:18 a.m. inappropriate
Historically a sure-fire supporter of all things defense related (McChord, Fort Lewis, Bangor, and Bremerton are all either in his district or the blast zone thereof) and organized labor supported, Norm Dicks is as close to a New Deal Democrat as anyone. Sadly, however, the ghost of Scoop Jackson is probably frowning upon Norm's disavowal of bi-partisan foreign policy and his willingness to retreat from traditional New Deal Democratic foreign policy principles - the principles of FDR, Harry Truman, JFK, Jackson, and others. Instead, he seems to have been sucked into the camp of McGovern, Carter, Dukakis (remember the tank ad?), Mondale, Sheehan, Reid, Pelosi, and MoveOn.org.
Still, you can occasionally see Norm at Safeco Field in the 100 level about 25-rows back on the first base side of home plate (last place I saw him) or at Husky Stadium where he played during the Jim Owens' era including on the 1961 Rose Bowl team that defeated Minnesota 17 - 7.
As an aside, anyone recall what else besides football made that game especially memorable? Think cards...
The Piper
Posted Fri, Aug 10, 3:45 p.m. inappropriate
Norm Dicks Rocks: When Congress earmarks, it is choosing how to spend the money instead of the political hacks that populate the upper reaches of the various agencies of the federal government.
Who should choose? Elected representatives or political appointees?
I'll take Norm Dicks any day. They guy is solid. He delivers. He lives and breathes office.
Few have ever done it better.
Posted Sat, Aug 11, 12:51 a.m. inappropriate
Larsen = Everett Homeport & Boeing, Dicks = Bremerton Naval Shipyard, Inslee = Bangor Sub Base: Thanks Will. My error. Thanks for correction. The maps inside my head were amorphous and my criticism of Dicks for being beholden to Boeing, in particular, doesn't make sense because of my bad geography.
A little corrective research reveals that Rick Larsen is the Congressman from from the 2nd District, which includes the Everett Naval Station home port (I incorrectly stated this was in Dicks' district) and the Whidbey Island Naval Airstation. The 2nd District includes Whatcom, Skagit and Snohomish Counties, plus a bit of rural King County.
Dicks is the Congressman for the 6th District which includes downtown Tacoma and most of the Olympic Peninsula (i.e., a Kitsap, Mason, Grays Harbor, Jefferson and Clallam Counties). As for the military, he's got the Bremerton Naval Shipyard (Kitsap County's largest employer) and the Bremerton Naval Station. The Bangor's Naval Submarine Base is also very near Dick's Distict, just down the way from Bremerton, and the Fort Lewis Army Post and McChord Air Force Base are just a few miles from the Tacoma segment of Dick's 6th District .
However, Fort Lewis and McChord are both in Adam Smith's 9th District, and Bangor is in Jay Inslee's 1st. So Jay is the member of the delegation with the most nuclear weapons in his district. Maybe after he finishes impeaching Attorney General Gonzales, he can get Iran's Ahmadinejadnd and North Korea's Kim Jong-Il to drop their nuclear programs in return for drydocking our nuclear subs.
Here's a breakdown of the major bases discussed above:
6th District - Rick Larsen - Everett Naval Station Homeport
6th District - Rick Larsen - Whidbey Island Naval AirStation
2nd District - Norm Dicks - Bremerton Naval Shipyard
2nd District - Norm Dicks - Bremerton Naval Station
9th District - Adam Smith - Fort Lewis Army Post
9th District - Adam Smith - McChord Air Force Base
1st District - Jay Inslee - Bangor Naval Submarine Base
Posted Sat, Aug 11, 3:47 a.m. inappropriate
RE: The Missing Link...: SEIKSUH
CALTECH
Posted Tue, Aug 14, 9:50 a.m. inappropriate
Farewell, Democracy: Norm Dicks is a walking, talking poster child for the urgency of term limits. He may be a decent human being, but he is also an example of the corrosive effect that unchallenged and unchallengeable incumbency has on our democracy. Under the watch of politicians such as Rep. Dicks our government has grown into a grotesquely bloated behemoth that is greedy, grasping, and ever more rapacious of our tax dollars. Instead of the federal government existing to serve the people, the people now exist to feed the expanding federal government.