Quote:
Originally posted by Spanky
I think Nixon tried this and was told by the Supreme Court to spend the money as Congress told him.
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Research reveals lower court.
But this is a different question. That related to actual legislation appropriating, say, $100m for an agency to spend. Nixon wanted to spend only $96m.
My quesiton is different. The transportation bill says spend $42 billion. The leg. history says we think that $3b (or something) should be spent on the following specific roads, bridges, tunnels, etc.. But nothing in the bill says that. Those are the earmarks. What if the president said okay I'll spend that $3b but how I see fit?
Earmarks are perniciious for two reasons, one is that they increase spending. Second is that they direct spending to less valuable projects (because if they were the most valuable there would be no need for an earmark). My question solves only the second pat of the problem, although in the long run perhaps the first as well. (Imagine Bush said "this is the course of action I will take").
