But it turns out lawmakers can still secretly direct billions of dollars to favored organizations by making vague requests rather than issuing explicit instructions to government agencies in committee reports and spending bills. That seeming courtesy is the difference between “soft earmarks” and the more insistent “hard earmarks.
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In considering lawmakers’ spending requests, some committees in recent years have switched hard earmarks to soft ones, saying it gives agencies more flexibility. Critics, including Mr. Flake, suggest it is being done to avoid scrutiny.
“With the efforts to shine more light on the earmarking process,” he said, “I am concerned that we might see increasingly creative ways to steer funding to recipients of funding that members of Congress want to see it go to.”
So it might be the case that earmarks are not shrinking under the Democratically controlled (sort of) Congress since 2006. Nevertheless, we must keep earmarks in perspective: hard earmarks account for something in the neighborhood of 1% of the federal budget (very roughly $20 billion in a $3 trillion budget). The Times piece finds $3 billion in soft earmarks in one of 13 appropriations bill. So for guessing purposes, let's say there's $40 billion in soft earmarks on top of the $20 billion in hard earmarks; that amounts to something in the neighborhood of 3% of the federal budget.
What I don't understand about earmarks is why they're funded as earmarks. I mean, why wouldn't Congress want to open all these expenditures to bidding? Is it because it's slow and labor-intensive (i.e. costly) to oversee the bidding? or is it really all about funneling money to friends and political supporters?
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