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ReVision

Scornful, not Stupid

Changing hearts requires stronger stuff than ballots.

In what some may regard as a paramount expression of corporate idiocy, Congress is considering passage of a 2,000 page government funding bill totaling $1.2 trillion and containing over 6,000 earmarks.

Earmarks, you will recall, are a form of constituency bribe by which a member of Congress redistributes your tax dollars to people and projects within his or her own district or state. The recent mid-term elections were supposed to have sent a strong message to Congress about such matters, and the Republicans seemed to have gotten it by foreswearing earmarks - after the end of this session of Congress, that is.

For Republicans and Democrats alike rushed to get their pet projects funded in this omnibus bill. That's the way earmarks work. Find a bill everybody wants to pass, then add your projects by amendment - having log-rolled enough of your colleagues in advance - so that you bypass the normal committe hearings and other forms of due process. The bill passes, because everybody wants it, and your project sails through right along with it.

Are the members of Congress stupid? Did they miss the point of the recent elections?

I don't think they're stupid. I do, however, see them as scornful of the electorate. This last round of earmarks before the new Congress is seated is an "up yours" from losing members and a "get-it-while-you-can" from those who have promised not to do such things in the future. Those members of Congress who have attached earmarks to this bill don't give a flip about what the electorate wants. They want what they want, and what they want is plenty of friends back home whose projects they are funding by this nefarious, scandalous process.

Sadly, for every outraged voter like me there's a voter whose project is about to get money from my pocket due to the efforts of his or her member of Congress. The corruption in our political system is embedded, not in the system, but in the sinful hearts of self-serving officials and their self-serving constituents. No amount of electoral politics will clean up this mess. Changing hearts requires stronger stuff than ballots.

Pray for Congress, friends - not just that they'll cease from this shadowy practice of earmarks, but that they'll rediscover their consciences so that they recover a sense of moral responsibility and spiritual need.

Additional related texts: 2 Chronicles 7.14; Psalm 82; Ezekiel 34.1-10; Deuteronomy 17.14-20

A conversation starter: "Do you think Congress will ever give up the practice of earmarks? Do members of Congress have any sense of moral responsibility remaining?

T.M. Moore

T. M. Moore is principal of The Fellowship of Ailbe, a spiritual fellowship in the Celtic Christian tradition. He and his wife, Susie, make their home in the Champlain Valley of Vermont.
Books by T. M. Moore

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