There are two things the leaders of the new majority in the House of Representatives have made clear since they began to assume the reins of power three months ago. They would:
- Cut spending
- Eliminate earmarks
Those two frequently repeated objectives are being translated into legislation in a 359-page bill filed on the House floor Friday evening—legislation that will be considered by the full House later this week without the benefit of hearings or even committee deliberation. As promised, the bill contains a breathtaking list of program cuts and terminations.
The bill would shred, among other things, the social safety net in hard-pressed localities across America with reductions in nutrition programs for infants and pregnant mothers. And it would cut federal support to keep destitute families from having their heat and electricity cut off during one of the coldest winters in recent memory. Preliminary analysis also indicates that Head Start programs may be forced to shut down a month early in many communities across the country. Finally, the bill would deliver a particularly hard blow to struggling local governments, canceling out billions of dollars in assistance to law enforcement, sewer construction, support of local schools, and so forth.
But buried deeply in these 359 pages of ugly surprises is a provision that would mean one community in America would do a lot better than all of the others. The legislation added an estimated $450 million for a particular bit of defense spending that the Department of Defense did not ask for and does not want.
The item is a down payment that would obligate the federal government to future payments that could well be three or four times the increased spending added to this particular piece of legislation, with a big portion of the funds flowing to two cities in Ohio—Cincinnati, where Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) grew up, and Dayton, the largest city in his congressional district.
The money will go to pay the costs to General Electric Co.’s General Electric Aviation unit and the British-owned Rolls Royce Group for their development of an engine for the new Joint Strike Fighter aircraft—money that looks, feels, and smells very much like an earmark.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/02/boehner_earmark.html
