Earmarks & The US Constitution

[zosima]

So I'm curious if anyone understands any of the case law around earmarks and how it is understood that they are constitutional under the constraints placed by the US constitution. I have two issues:

(1) The taxing and spending clause allows spending for the general welfare. It seems aimed at national and distributed spending. How can the federal government justify earmark spending that is often unequal and on local issues?

(2) It seems that earmark spending could be used to undermine the founders' intent when it comes to the requirements that exports not be taxed and that taxation be uniform. For example: The Fed could subsidize the transport of goods with an exception of one, thereby increasing the relative cost to export that good. Effectively taxing exports. Or the fed could subsidize California's corn but not Ohio's, thereby increasing the relative cost of Ohio's corn, de-facto it accomplishes the aim prohibited by the uniformity clause by establishing a non-uniform economic advantage on one state over another. It seems that (2) might be unconstitutional even if (1) is not.

So how are these allowed? The only thing I can think of, is that people trying to sue in court may not have the Taxpayer Standing to sue, thus preventing the courts from ever eliminating unconstitutional earmarks.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

1) Because you can argue a lot of things promote general welfare
2) Founder's Intent mean you pretty much lose the argument.

 

[zosima]

1) Because you can argue a lot of things promote general welfare

I was hoping there was someone on these forums that is familiar with the specific cases. I doubt this is a thing that the courts have never considered, and I imagine that their reasoning is pretty interesting. Sadly, I don't have LN.

2) Founder's Intent mean you pretty much lose the argument.

But I may not have been clear when I said founders intent. More accurately, you could use earmarks to undermine other provisions of the constitution.

I didn't think there was an argument. I thought it was a question.

 

[KoihimeNakamura]

Oh. Okay. Well, I can look into it. I imagine I'll just need to find time to see if I can locate any records of the 1st and 2nd Congresses.

 

[UserGoogol]

One fairly old argument (Lincoln used it when trying to justify internal improvements (which is a broader concept than earmarking specifically but close enough) back when he was a Congressman) is that nothing can be entirely general in scope, and nothing is entirely local. Even having a navy might be said to benefit coastal regions more than inland regions, for instance. And earmarks targeted at some local program can easily have wider effects.

Most earmarks are not blatantly unjustifiable. Building a bridge helps promote commerce which can benefit trade all over the country. Funding a museum can promote the advancement of science, which benefits everyone. And so on. There are problems with earmarking, but I don't think it's a constitutional one.