WASHINGTON – In the ongoing fight over federal spending, nothing has taken more heat – or faces
a greater long-term prospect of extinction – than the earmark.

Among all states, Ohio once reigned as a top recipient of such funds. In federal fiscal year of
2009, Ohio was the 10th-largest state recipient of congressionally directed spending,
receiving more than $345 million.

That year, now-retired Reps. David L. Hobson, R-Springfield, and Ralph Regula, R-Navarre, were
subcommittee chairmen for the House Appropriations Committee. Money funded everything from a dining
facility at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to new buses for the Central Ohio Transit Authority to
after-school programs for at-risk students in Cleveland.

This year, both the House and Senate have declared a moratorium on earmarks, meaning that if a
spending measure isn’t in President Barack Obama’s budget, it’ll take something akin to a miracle
for it to pass Congress. House leaders, including House Speaker John Boehner, R-West Chester, say
in a time of fiscal crisis, earmarks have no place in federal funding.

The appropriations committees, once the legislative equivalent of Santa Claus, are now more
likely to be cast in the role of the Grinch – cutting funds rather than doling them out.

“It’s gone from a committee that in the past had unlimited spending to now, a committee that’s
been given the responsibility to rein in spending and make necessary cuts and sometimes very
difficult cuts,” said Rep. Steve Austria, R-Beavercreek, one of three Ohioans on the House
Appropriations Committee. In the Senate, Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who serves on the
Appropriations Committee, said, “It’s a different environment.”

Although they account for less than 1 percent of federal discretionary spending, to
critics, earmarks are ”pork” – projects lawmakers used to “bring home the bacon” to
their supporters. High-profile and controversial earmarks such as Alaska’s so-called “Bridge to
Nowhere” have further sullied their reputation.

But to those who received the funds, the perspective is wildly different. They say these
dollars, often matched by local money, help with economic development and quality of life.

Often, they say, a quick shot of federal largess provided the impetus to make long-term plans a
reality.

For example, Berger Hospital in Circleville was among the 370 Ohio projects to receive earmarks
in the federal fiscal year of 2009. It received a $188,000 federal grant for the purchase of a
64-slice CT scanner. The technology allowed the hospital to perform new medical studies and
provided extra radiation-protection benefits for patients.

The total cost was $906,000, but Suzanne Welker, a spokeswoman for the hospital, said the
$188,000 was vital in making the project a reality.

“Having a 64-slice CT right here in our community provides better access, safety and
higher-quality care to our patients,” said Dr. Allen Katz, medical director of imaging and
radiation safety officer at Berger Health System.

Whether the moratorium will be permanent remains to be seen. Austria said the earmark process
should continue only if it is reviewed and reformed to ensure full transparency and make sure every
earmark has merit. One definition of merit: projects that help create jobs or ensure national
defense.

In 2009, the Columbus Museum of Art received a $95,000 congressionally directed grant to
preserve, digitize and catalog the 836 works of Columbus artist Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson.

Was it a job-creating earmark?

Absolutely, said Nancy Colvin, a spokeswoman for the museum.

The museum hired a local company to create a database and web interface of Robinson’s work -
stage two of a project that also included “Aminah’s World,” an award-winning website about the
artist. The earmark, Colvin said, not only paid for jobs locally but also supported one of the
bright lights of the Columbus art scene.

The museum will launch the database in July.

Critics of earmarks say the current moratorium won’t stop lawmakers who want to push pet
projects. In particular, their alarm bells went off this year when the House passed the National
Defense Authorization Bill, which included a new “Mission Force Enhancement Transfer Fund.” That
was a “slush fund,” they say, that lawmakers could direct toward their pet projects. Watchdogs
worry that House appropriators will adopt a similar practice for their bills.

“It’s a perfect scam,” said Leslie Paige of Citizens Against Government Waste, a watchdog group
critical of earmarks.

Paige and others concede that some of the funded projects have value. They support a competitive
system in which funds are allocated based on their merit, not whether the lawmaker pushing it
happens to have more political power. Until that is done, they say, earmarks will slip through the
cracks.

“Just like nature, politics abhors a vacuum,” said Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense.
“There are going to be ways to get around the system.”

Some say that stopping earmarks altogether may be counterproductive.

Michael Gessel, vice president of federal affairs for the Dayton Development Coalition, said an
earmark moratorium “gives the community less control over federal funding.”

“It makes it more difficult for a community to say, ‘I want my federal dollars to go to XYZ, and
I will, working through my congressional delegation, get that money back,’” he said. “Earmarks are
a lever that Congress and the American people use to influence and control government
spending.”

Not long ago, the coalition would submit a binder with budget requests to members of Congress
during annual “fly-ins” to Washington, D.C. The binder would include requests for projects with
specific dollar figures and exhaustive explanations for why the funds were necessary and how
federal dollars would help the community.

Now, those binders are more legislative in scope.

Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Genoa Township, decided early that he would request few, if any, earmarks.
Those he requests go through extensive scrutiny and must be noncontroversial, as well as have a
federal nexus. “Why should the federal government be involved? Is there any opposition? What’s the
regional benefit of it?” he said.

“There are good earmarks; there are bad earmarks,” he said. “But in this environment of $14
trillion debt and huge structural spending problems, the day of the earmark is over. But that
doesn’t solve our bigger problem, and that bigger problem is our entitlement programs.”

But Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Columbus, said he thinks it is possible that earmarks will return one
day, though likely in a different, more transparent and accountable manner.

He said the moratorium offers a useful opportunity to review what he calls a “symbol” of
wasteful spending. But, he says, “it’s our job to decide where the money we bring in is spent.”

jwehrman@dispatch.com