We've talked a lot about the budget in recent weeks and how both parties have used Fuzzy Math. Now let's talk about a budget quirk involving earmarks.
When the Republicans pushed through a stop gap budget in February that had $61 billion in cuts, the GOP said they were cutting out $8.5 billion in earmarks.
Well, I sort of wondered - whose earmarks? I didn't hear anyone kicking and screaming and crying about their project getting the ax.
Then, when the Congress approved a two-week budget last week, it included about $2.7 billion in earmark cuts, a portion of the $8.5 in the original GOP budget cutting bill.
Again, I thought - whose earmarks?
I asked around, and no one gave me a good answer. Lawmakers told me that everyone was keeping quiet, so they weren't sure what was being cut as well.
I called a couple of agencies and no one would respond to my questions.
Then I learned something that I didn't know.
When Congress failed to approve a budget for the current fiscal year last fall, lawmakers instead okayed a temporary budget to keep the government running, at the same funding levels as 2010.
Because of that, any earmarks that were in the bill in 2010 would also automatically be funded at the same level in 2011 as well.
That budget fact was a new one to me.
I was told by one person - from a stint the aide had at a federal agency - there was a similar situation in 2007, as extra money flowed into that department during the time of an extended stop gap budget.
This aide said the chieftains of that department then steered that money into other projects which had not been approved by the Congress.
So, the earmark money cut out by the two-week budget was an effort to reach into these agencies and pull back money that might not have been appropriated if the regular budget had been approved by Congress.
The cuts were described to me as the "lowest" of the low-hanging fruit in the budget - the easiest things to "cut" of all.
But when I talked to some federal agencies about the impact of these Congressional "cuts," I got a different answer.
A spokesman at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said their people gave no hint that they needed to change their ways, even though the two-week budget bill chopped the following:
-$56 million - Army Corps of Engineers, Investigations
-$341million - Army Corps of Engineers, Construction
-$80 million - Army Corps of Engineers, Mississippi River
-$39 million - Army Corps of Engineers, Operations and Maintenance
So, the Congress cuts $496 million from the budget of the Army Corps of Engineers, and yet the Corps says it doesn't impact them at all.
Last week I talked a lot about Fuzzy Budget Math.
I'm starting to wonder whether the same fuzzy logic might apply to some of these $4 billion in "cuts" as well.
Usually, when you cut something, someone screams. I haven't heard any screaming from this law yet.
And frankly, it makes me wonder.
