A New Brand of Welfare Reform: Ending Earmarks

It’s been years since Wisconsin’s welfare reforms under Gov. Tommy Thompson inspired Congress to pass the Welfare Reform Act of 1996. Now, spurred to action by a looming $1 trillion federal budget deficit, a national debt of $14 trillion and a growing taxpayer rebellion, some members of Congress are taking a stand against the earmarks so deeply entrenched in defense spending.

A bipartisan majority in the House, including the entire Wisconsin delegation, drew a line in the sand last month and voted against handing out another $3 billion to GE and Rolls Royce for the clearly unnecessary alternate engine for the F-35 joint strike fighter. This second engine would be produced in addition to the engine being manufactured by Pratt & Whitney, the company that won the competitive bidding to supply the engine for the F-35.

Pratt & Whitney is already manufacturing that engine, and it has performed well in the advanced testing required by the Air Force. Nonetheless, the federal government has paid out $1.3 billion to GE over the past 14 years to develop a long delayed second engine. Estimates are that the engine development would cost taxpayers another $3 billion.

The second engine program is obviously unneeded. President Barack Obama and President George W. Bush both tried to kill the second engine program as unnecessary and expensive. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates doesn’t want the second engine, nor does the Air Force. But until the House vote on Feb. 16, Congress had continuously approved an earmark of unrequested spending for the second engine.

Funding production of a second engine is a classic example of the earmarks that inflate the cost of defense spending and have helped build the massive federal debt.

Apologists for the second engine funding say it would be a source of competition that will keep costs down. In truth, programs like this are an expensive consolation prize for big defense contractors that lose out with competitive proposals but have enough friends in Congress to see that they don’t go away empty-handed.

But members of the new Republican House majority, led by first-term lawmakers committed to cutting the deficit, made common cause with Democrats and bucked the House leadership to kill the wasteful program. This could be a sign of broad based political revolt against irresponsible government spending.

Both parties would do well to heed the signs of the past election. Fiscal conservatives and political independents came together here in Wisconsin to show their impatience and distaste for lavish government spending in these tough economic times.

We’ll get a test of that when the House amendment opposing the second engine boondoggle goes before the Senate. While the Senate is still controlled by Democrats, both parties should be on notice that the people back home have had it with tax dollars being spent recklessly on unnecessary and wasteful programs. And for now at least, the public is watching.