[dmorgan81]

Congress was destined to this fate when they eliminated earmarks. Earmarks, or pork barrel spending, were derided as gov't waste, but in reality they were the grease that kept legislation moving. A representative could go back to their voters and say, "I voted for this thing you might not like, but I did it to ensure this crucial local project got done."

Without earmarks there is no incentive to compromise. Compromise is actually a liability now, because there is always someone who will challenge you in a primary and promise to be more "ideologically pure." Without the ability to point to money and public works to defend yourself both during a primary and an election the best you can do is point to a record without compromise.

[favorited]

Earmarks are back. They were against the House's rules for 10 years, but the 117th Congress started allowing them again in 2021.

[1980phipsi]

And the past three years have seen the return of friendliness and comity unseen for a decade /s

[favorited]

I'm glad we've established that the absence of earmarks isn't the problem.

[yencabulator]

Not wanting to compromise comes largely from the two-party system. If a politician had to worry about losing votes to a more moderate party, they'd end up with less extreme voting records.

Multi-party governments function largely because some subset of the parties agrees to compromises to gain a combined majority on a specific topic; none of them can do anything in isolation.

[D13Fd]

You're absolutely right IMO. When there is no reason to compromise and compromise can only hurt you, no one compromises and nothing gets done. Earmarks shift those incentives in the right direction, and their cost is a small price to pay to have a government that governs.

[darkwizard42]

There are still bill riders on many congressional votes. I don't think this is true (regarding elimination of earmarks)

[mrcwinn]

I think the results are mixed and the lessons aren’t clear to me.

Perhaps earmarks were the result of an electorate that wanted more purity in decision-making (at the cost of stability). In other words, earmarks didn’t break cooperation. Corrupted cooperation led to the end of earmarks.

Earmarks probably do grease the wheels, but it’s important to remember a step existed before the compromise: a member of the congress could hold out until they received something, often unrelated to the matter at hand. That is wasteful and, to some, dishonest.

Now, did a removal earmarking result in more financial efficiency? Surely not. The budget deficit continued to grow, mostly because of Obamacare, Covid, wars, tax cuts.

So what of compromise? One might think compromise is dead, and yet we live in a world where Ukraine aid is tied to social media ownership.

Shruggy dude.