Question 1: How many earmarks did Maine’s senators request this year?

 

Maine had the fifth-most earmark money in the country last year, and they’ll likely be near the top again once these bills are finalized.

 

Sen. Susan Collins is routinely among the largest earmarkers in Congress and this year is no exception. She used her position as vice chair of the appropriations committee to request a lot of pork.

 

Collins has her name on 148 earmarks worth nearly $500 million. That’s the second most in the entire Senate - only Mitch McConnell asked for more money.

 

Angus King co-sponsored most of them with Collins. 

 

The Republican party often frames themselves as opposing government spending, but that’s not always the case when it comes to earmarks.

 

Question 2: How many earmarks did the House request?

 

Portland’s Rep. Chellie Pingree requested 15 earmarks, the max amount for House members, for almost $32 million.

 

Rep. Jared Golden in the second district also requested 15.

 

A lot of the requests go to local police departments to help them modernize their equipment, even a few for new police car garages.

 

Some seem a bit more questionable. Golden requested $1 million to support the American Lobster Settlement Index. Pingree asked for $4 million for the United Society of Shakers to build a community center where they’ll host “craft production” events.

 

Question 3: Earmarks help bring a lot of federal funds to projects around Maine. But why do OpenTheBooks and other critics want them banned?

 

Earmarks are often called the “currency of corruption.” In the past, Congress members have been caught using them to appeal to special interests and essentially buy votes. Obama and Sen. Tom Coburn helped ban them in 2011, but that only lasted 10 years until both parties voted to bring them back.

 

Today there’s more rules to force transparency and try and prevent conflicts of interest. But these are still local projects that often can, and arguably should, be funded locally. Some of them were already denied state/local funding because the state didn’t think it was a good use of money.

 

And the transparency isn’t perfect. The Senate posted their earmark requests this year in separate blurry PDF files with differing formats. It took our team hours to convert them to Excel files and get a dollar total. It shouldn’t be that difficult - Congress should be open about how many earmarks they request.

 

Question 4: Give us the broader picture. Are Congress’ earmark requests larger this year, or is spending going down? 

 

Remember none of these have been signed into law yet and the dollar total will likely decrease. Some will be removed or merged.

 

Maine’s request is actually lower than last year by about $100 million. Last year almost every earmark they requested was passed. Some of that is likely due to Collins’ position in the appropriations committee.

 

But the $31 billion request for all of Congress is large. Last year they requested $25 billion and passed $16 billion.

 

House Republicans are contributing the most. Thirty-three of the 40 largest earmark requests in the House came from Republicans, including the four largest. They outspent House Democrats by about 50%.