Keith Olbermann made a good point recently when noting that Obama's budget is not just about dollars and cents, but more important, an expression of his policy views. His view of what we as a people should care about as expressed by what we spend our money on. In the Bush years, for instance, tax policy was skewered to the rich. Obama and the Democrats have a different approach in mind, even if Joe the Plumber sorts want to pretend otherwise. Likewise, tidbits such as this underline the important policy implications of budgets:
The 2009 omnibus appropriations bill has a little-noticed provision that will have a huge impact on college women. It's called the "affordable birth control fix," and is aimed at restoring access to affordable birth control for nearly four million college students and low-income women!
In 2005, Congress passed the Deficit Reduction Act, which tightened regulations about who was eligible for nominally priced drugs. In doing so, Congress inadvertently cut off every single college and university health center and other safety-net providers from obtaining birth control at a low cost, and passing on those savings to their patients. Women like me are now paying up to 10 times more each month for basic birth control.
The discussion suggests the effect of such things, including the message being sent to women, and limits on their ability to true equality, especially in respect to their bodies. This also puts into perspective that people simply do not care too much about McCain's harping on earmarks. They have a sense of perspective, even if in some fashion they appreciate his call for fiscal restraint, one he admits is not shared by many of his political brethren. McCain, however, supports the Republican fiscal policies overall (now, including tax cuts for the rich), which in the long run is a lot more fiscally irresponsible:
But after eight years of the policies McCain mostly promised to continue if he won the election, eliminating the millions -- or even billions -- of dollars that get sprinkled around on lawmakers' pet projects isn't going to fix much.
Putting aside that things like scientific research and the like is clearly beneficial. Earmarks -- now no longer secret -- might be of individual concern, but they often involve important matters all the same. Consider a USA Today (h/t "Today's Papers" at Slate) feature as to how a $410 billion bill has $227 million for "pet projects for former lawmakers." We are talking a tiny fraction of one percent here (someone tells me the total earmark figure is about 1%), and even there, the measures include things like funding for "North Carolina Sheriffs' Association for the North Carolina Sheriffs' Association to equip a training facility". Plus, it provides the necessary grease to satisfy local interests that is needed to pass large budget bills.
Yes, some are dubious, some are open to ridicule. Take any program, however, and some results will be dubious, some open to ridicule. And, even there, upon closer look, it might not seem too ridiculous. McCain, for example, ridicules funding for astronomic research. How silly! Surely, studying our atmosphere and space overall is stupid. Or, studies on let's say pig odor. This is not so silly if you are in a farming community, is it? It is akin to those who made fun of Rep. Gillibrand for being on some farm related committee, when in fact her region in upstate New York is quite concerned with that issue. Press loving mavericks at times miss the forest for the trees, and clearly this is but one reason the people rejected him as President.
And, this is why the Republicans whining about pork in a military funding bill late in the Bush Administration didn't concern me. All such bills tend to have some sort of pork. It was an non-issue, something to change the subject about how flawed the Bush policy was. Meanwhile, reforms have been made to earmarks, which have been (so I hear) reduced. McCain snide comments about "changes we can believe in" notwithstanding.