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Date published: 7/11/2006

OVER THE PAST few years, Con- gress has abused the federal bud- get process to reward influential constituencies (and congressmen themselves) with pork-barrel earmarks. While Congress has shown no inclination to control this appetite, the White House has been alarmed by the wasted money and has been looking for remedies.

In his recent State of the Union address, President Bush expressed concern about Congress' increasing appetite for pork and proposed that "we can tackle this problem together, if you pass the line-item veto." With a line-item veto, the president could delete the offending portions of legislation sent him for signature and approve the rest. Under his current powers, a presidential veto is an all-or-nothing event, and a veto of a budget bill could lead to agency shutdowns.

But a recent report by the Library of Congress argues that the president already possesses powers similar to those of a line-item veto. As the LOC report states: "Earmarks that appear in committee reports do not legally bind agencies, unless text in a statute provides that they shall have the force of law. In the absence of such language agencies generally are not bound by their declarations."

Inasmuch as 12,469 of the 13,012 earmarks in the 11 appropriations bills for fiscal year 2006 fall into this vulnerable category, the president is under no legal obligation to fund them and could delete them with his "virtual" line item veto.

The key difference between the virtual and the real is that the virtual eliminates the earmark but not the money, while the real would eliminate both, thereby reducing the deficit. The White House having been so advised, the only thing that stands between spending taxpayer dollars on these 12,469 earmarks is the president's acquiescence.

Among the 12,469 wasteful projects that would be at risk of presidential defunding:

$500,000 to Folkmoot USA (North Carolina) for Appalachian folk programs, including forest crafts.

$1 million for Suwanee County, Fla., dairy- and poultry-waste treatment.

$242,000 to the National Wild Turkey Federation based in Illinois.

Importantly, the money Congress would have forced federal agencies to spend on wasteful projects could be redeployed to more cost-effective programs within the same agency. Examples of such questionable projects:

$500,000 to plan for high-speed rail near Carriere, Miss.

$3 million for Paducah, Ky., waterfront development.

Date published: 7/11/2006