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Hi, everybody. Cheryl Atkison here. Welcome to another edition of Full Measure. After Hours. Today, a controversial spending practice in Congress, loathed by many taxpayers and banned by both parties, but that's now made a quiet comeback. This Sunday, March 6th, on full measure, we will be tackling a controversial topic very popular among viewers. When I covered these stories as an investigative correspondent for CBS News, earmarks. Earmarks are grants of taxpayer money by members of Congress without going through the normal budget process, competitive bidding, oversight. And over the years, earmarks by most accounts, really got out of control. The leaders of both parties hand out the money to members so that they can earmark for pet projects in their home districts. And they use that to wield power and authority over the members to get the members of their parties to vote the way the leaders want them to vote, to exchange favors. And oftentimes this has gotten members in trouble. Over the years, both Democrats and Republicans have gotten caught breaking the law, handing out these grants of taxpayer money, millions upon millions of dollars in many cases, for corrupt causes, fraud, waste or abuse. For a little while at CBS News, I was assigned to do a weekly story looking into an earmark. This was under the incredible executive producer at CBS at the time, Rick Kaplan, who understood how popular these stories were. When we did follow the money stories, really on any topic, but in particular on taxpayer money spent as earmarks. And throughout the course of me doing those follow the money stories and the earmark stories I was told by numerous executives at CBS News, those were the most popular stories in many instances that we did, the most viewed by viewers and the ones that were most highest regarded according to their research. And I got quite a reputation on Capitol Hill at the time when I was doing these stories, ultimately, members of both parties personally credited me, or I should say blamed me for the ultimate decision to ban earmarks. Because the weekly stories that I was doing for CBS News got so much publicity and brought so much bad press, there was pressure to take action, even though members of both parties were in many instances benefiting greatly from this practice known as earmarks. A little bit of inside baseball you might be interested in as things started to change in the news business, where, as I've written about in my books, we went from a place where reporters often just did the research in the field and presented the facts to certain executives not wanting certain kinds of stories. And the stories with earmarks, as things changed at cbs, even though they were the most popular and well regarded stories we were doing at the time, became something that some executives didn't really want to do. There came to be this sort of push me pull you where I would do these really interesting stories that viewers would like and that had, I think, great value in explaining what was happening in Washington, D.C. when it comes to taxpayer money spending. But then word would come down that there would start to be some restrictions. Let me give you an example. Initially, I did a lot of stories both on Democrat and Republican earmarks. They were split about evenly, and sometimes they were on very big grants of money. Sometimes they were on pretty small, relatively small grants of money. Why did I do the relatively small grants of money? Half million dollars? A million dollars? Well, sometimes those were the examples that were most relatable. There's so many of these you could never report on all of them. But one salient example can really drive home the kind of spending that's going on on Capitol Hill. For example, your taxpayer money spent by a member of Congress locally to try to fund a teapot museum. Again, you may say, well, I don't have anything against a teapot museum, but I think most people could effectively argue that that's not the role of the federal government, that that's not why federal taxpayers are supposed to be kicking in, particularly at a time when we have so much debt, so much deficit every year. Why would money be going to a teapot museum? I also covered very big earmarks, tens of millions of dollars and even more. But word came down after we started getting so much pushback from leaders on Capitol Hill, I was asked at CBS only to focus on earmarks bigger than a million dollars. Again, this was contrary to what we had agreed upon in the beginning that sometimes the small earmarks were the best examples. But there are plenty of earmarks to go for that are a million dollars or bigger. Well, pretty soon word came down that I was only to look at earmarks that were $10 million or above. And later it was suggested that I only look at earmarks $100 million or above. And that became a little bit of a problem because there are those big earmarks. But those are examples of money going out the door for big sort of nebulous projects that aren't as easy to describe or relate to or sort out, the waste or the fraud or the abuse. And then pretty soon after that, we stopped doing those weekly stories altogether. But they still had quite an impact. As I mentioned along the way, both Democrats and Republicans ultimately agreed to give up the practice of earmarking. Well, fast forward to now and earmarks, despite all that I just told you about and despite quite a few criminal cases and scandals surrounding earmarks of decades past, they've made a comeback, a quiet comeback on Capitol Hill. They've got a new name. They've got support from some members in both parties, but particularly it was the Democratic leadership that brought them back. And they promise it'll be different this time. They promise more oversight. They promise tighter restrictions. You'll hear from both sides on that. In my cover story Sunday on Full Measure. For today's podcast, I want to look at some numbers that I crunched way back when, when this was such a controversy, in particularly 2005, 2008 time period. A story I did for CBS News reviewed what was really the most complete data on earmarks available that year for the first time, where the members of Congress were talking about and disclosing exactly how much they were earmarking for what? That's because before they banned earmarks, when Democrats took control, they did change an old rule. Earmarks were being done anonymously. We would never even know necessarily what member of Congress was earmarking your tax money for what projects. But new rules were installed to try to head off some of the criticism where members must attach their names to the earmarks and a congressional database was set up. But maybe intentionally, it was not all that easy to use. You couldn't just plug in a search term and come up with earmark results. You'd have to go through each spending bill where the earmarks are inserted and search them line by line. Furthermore, the amounts of an earmark were not, as I found, necessarily next to the member's name. So there could be a member's name attached to an earmark, but no number, or you could find a project with no amount next to it. Well, the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, so I've often consulted over the years, they had collected at the time what was the most complete database on earmarks, and that was for fiscal year 2008, right before they were banned and at my request when I worked for cbs, because they have researchers that can do this, they looked for the likely top 10 spenders in the House and Senate, and I published the results. As I wrote, not all earmarks, of course, are inherently wasteful or bad, but they grew from nearly non existent in the 1970s to a peak of more than 15,000 in 2005. That was according to the Congressional Research Office. And many people just thought they'd grown out of control. Earmarks became the cheapest, easiest way for members of Congress to to win votes at home and maybe donations from special interests, often by using your taxpayer dollars to give to pet projects in their districts. Earmarks, as I mentioned, work outside the normal budget processes. They circumvent the carefully established merit based system that's supposed to include checks and balances and competitive bidding and grants. And the way it works, the most powerful members of Congress who sit on the most important spending committees got a disproportionate amount of earmarks. So their districts and projects may be no more deserving than any others. But they were rewarded with the ability to spend all this money. And too often earmarks were given to congressional donors or friends or groups that have the best lobbyists. So here's what we found when we crunch the numbers. The king of earmarks for that year, as told by Taxpayers for Common Sense after they did the math, was Senator Thad Cochran, a Republican of Mississippi who had served at the time in Congress for about 35 years. For fiscal year 2008. Listen to this. He managed to scoop up $773 million worth of money for his special earmark projects. That's your taxpayer money on top of the normal federal budget and any emergency spending. That's a lot of money for any single elected person on the planet to direct. $773 million outside the normal process. And who else were top spenders that year? Let's go down the Senate side. Next in line, Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska. More than $501 million of your taxpayer money he directed to projects. Senator Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia, 429.5 million. Senator Daniel Inouye, a Democrat from Hawaii, $404 million plus Senator Richard Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, more than $383 million of your money. Senator Harry Reid, Democrat from Nevada, 335.7 million. Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat from Iowa, 288.6 million. Senator Patty Murray, Democrat from Washington, 247.1 million. Senator Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, 215.9 million. And Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, 177.7 million. In the House side, the biggest names that year were Representative C.W. bill Young, Republican of Florida, 161.1 million. John Murtha, legendary for his earmarks. Democrat of Pennsylvania, 151 million. Jerry Lewis, he got in legal trouble over his earmarks. Republican of California, 136.8 million. Steny Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland, 96 million. Pete Viscloski, Democrat from Indiana, 90.9 million. Dave Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin, 90.1 million. Norm Dix, Democrat, Washington, 89.6 million Nancy Pelosi, Democrat from California, 87 million Dave Hobson, Republican, Ohio, 79.8 million and Roy Blunt, Republican in Mississippi, 40.7 million. Why did these members of Congress and those specific ones get so much money and more than their colleagues to to send back to their home districts for projects of their choosing outside the normal budget process? After a short break, more on earmarks, why they were banned and why they're back. We're back. And for more context on earmarks, their rather sordid history and their quiet comeback, I thought I would play for you a short story that I reported for CBS News back in April of 2009 as some members of Congress, when this controversy was getting bigger and bigger, were casting votes to ban earmarks, but others were not. Take a listen.
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Almost $8 million for oyster habitats to perennial research on blueberries and honeybees. Congress pork barrel spending is out of the park. That includes $3.8 million for Detroit's old Tiger Stadium.
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You hear Washington officials say we all have to tighten our belts. We all have to sacrifice.
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There's $1.9 million for a water taxi at the abandoned pleasure beach in Connecticut, four and a half million benefits the timber industry, funding things like new uses for particle board and plywood. And from Kansas, the winner of most
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self absorbed earmark, Senator Pat Roberts, $2 million for the Pat Roberts Intelligence Scholars Program.
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Top spenders overall are Democrat Neil Abercrombie of Hawaii in the house, $256 million in earmarks and Republican Thad Cochran of Mississippi in the Senate with 653 million.
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who promised major
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earmark reforms, wasn't available for an interview, but her office talk. Democrats have provided historic transparency and accountability. Harry.
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Cheryl Atkinson in Washington tonight.
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Thanks.
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As an aside, that was Harry Smith anchoring, filling in for the CBS Evening News. Katie Couric was the regular anchor at that time with Harry filling in. What a great colleague to work with. Harry Smith was. Well, anyway, back to earmarks. You know, I talked about waste, fraud and abuse. Some earmarks were really in the category of they may sound okay, but there's just a philosophical difference in what the federal government ought to be paying for with federal tax money and what ought to be left up to state and local officials and taxpayers if they want to fund something. For example, there are so many efforts to fund things like the grape industry connected to the wine industry in some states and regions. Well, that may sound like a pretty good thing, but as we sometimes found this was money that went into the pockets of well to do industries that in turn were donating back to the members of Congress or to the political parties responsible for giving them the earmarks. One hand was washing another. When the members of Congress give out these millions and millions of dollars, they're paid back by less money because contributions, direct contributions anyway, are limited by law. They may only be able to get a certain amount of thousands of dollars from a single contributor, but they're given out millions of dollars sometimes in exchange for getting the money back. How do you prove it's a quid pro quo? In other words, how can you prove that a member of Congress could be giving money tacitly in exchange for money coming back into their pockets? And very hard to prove. And it's often left up to the political parties and to Congress to enforce and look into these sorts of things. So that's not done very often. Which brings us back to some of the inherent problems with earmarks. This time many promise that it's going to be different. As you'll see in my cover story on Sunday, March 6, Congress has given earmarks a new name. They promise better transparency. The Democrat leaders who have installed a new version of earmarks are saying that there will be a lot more oversight. For example, unlike before, the requesting member of Congress who wants to get a pot of money doled out by their party leadership as an earmark for their community, they will have to certify that the community wants the project that the earmark is going for. And all of these earmark requests will supposedly be online. I went through some of them the other day. It looks like most members who are requesting earmarks have been limited to maybe 10 apiece. I don't think they're guaranteed to get all 10 of them necessarily. Again, the party leaders will decide which members get doled out, what kind of money for which projects. A lot of the projects that I saw when I was looking through this database or through the places where people are listing what their earmark requests are, they're more in line with public works projects, maybe improvement of a water system in their area, or road projects or the sewer system. This is a little different than what I was seeing some years ago when I was looking through them. But watch for these as time goes on to slip more into what they used to be a favor here, a favor there, money toward an already well to do project or academic institution or museum or interest. Hey, in some cases, when I was covering this story for CBS News, we found that members of Congress were routinely earmarking to places where family members were employed and pulling salaries. This time with the new rules, they're supposed to certify that the earmarks will not benefit them directly and I think even benefit a family member. So we'll see how all that works out. I hope you'll check out the story on full measure Sunday, March 6th. What else do we have coming up on this week's program? Well, we are off to Texas. As you know, Texas has passed a very restrictive anti abortion law. And Scott Thuman is going to take us to a ranch not far outside of Dallas where one couple has started an unusual resource for pregnant women who have other children. But they're single, meaning these moms are single and they need extra support. A great little story about people trying to do something that helps a lot of other people. I will also speak to Congressman Darrell Issa about the long suffering Durham investigation. Remember, for years there was the FBI narrative that Trump was a Russia spy and of course, none of that turned out to be true. Then there was an investigation started into how the FBI and quite frankly, CIA and other intelligence agencies got wrapped up in that narrative. We already know that one former FBI attorney has been charged with a crime but pled guilty, although I think he was really undercharged. I mean, if you take an attorney for the FBI who admitted doctoring a document to get a wiretap against a US Citizen who is connected to Donald Trump, that seems like a really, really big crime in the scheme of things, the sort of thing that we would expect Russian government officials or KGB people to do. But this was being done by the FBI and clearly others were involved. Other people knew that this FBI lawyer wasn't telling the truth with the document, had doctored it, certainly when news reports about it came out, but they stayed silent. So nobody else was held accountable. I think this is a pretty big deal. Well, now the Durham investigation, John Durham, the U.S. attorney assigned to look into the FBI's misconduct. Well, this is going on for almost three years. The question is what good will it do? Anything that he finds now, if some of the mischief that was committed by intelligence officials or people connected to the Clinton campaign, as is alleged, or people now in politics that are running the government, what good does it do way after the fact, after they've committed the mischief and won their way into office? So this should be really interesting. But we'll get Congressman Issa's take on what, if anything, can come now from the Durham probe. As always, if you want to find full measure on television. Go to cherylakkeson.com and click the full Measure tab. There's a full list of stations by city and state. If you don't have a station near you, no problem. You can go to FullMeasure News online. FullMeasure News, we stream live at that site for free at 9:30am Eastern time on Sundays, 9:30am eastern time on Sundays and. And you can catch replays thereafter because we post the whole program and all the segments, usually before noon Eastern time on Sundays. 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