FLEISCHMANN GOES FROM VOCAL FOE TO TOP OF EARMARKS LIST

“I inherited a broken system. … The first thing I did [when first elected in 2010] was we put a moratorium on those terrible earmarks.” — U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, 2014

“[T]hese are not your father’s earmarks.” — U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, 2021

It used to be said that members of Congress were “bringing home the bacon.”

Then that bacon — that “pork” — became a bad word, a very bad word. Until it wasn’t.

And that’s how U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann, R-Tennessee, became the top purveyor of pork — earmarked projects added to the federal budget — in the United States House of Representatives in the fiscal 2024 budget.

To be fair, the House Democratic majority reinstated earmarks in 2021, a decade after the House Republican majority banned them in a tea party-fueled burst against deficit spending in 2011. Republicans, in a closed-door meeting three years ago, voted to go along with earmarks — now called “Community Investment Funding” — and retained them when they regained control of the House in 2023.

Fleischmann explained in 2021 that the new process for requesting and allocating the money for earmarks was not the same as it was before they were banned, that the requests must be for municipal or nonprofit projects that have community support, that the number of requests was limited and that members must explain in writing why the requests are an “appropriate use of taxpayer funds.”

The seven-term congressman, according to a CQ Roll Call analysis, requested $273.3 million in earmarked projects in the current federal budget being debated, $237 million of which (the largest single earmark request by any House member) is to complete the replacement Chickamauga Lock.

Work at the lock has been going on — with stops for funding gaps — for nearly 20 years and is now estimated to cost $954.4 million, triple its initial cost estimates.

When earmarks were banned, Fleischmann helped reform the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, the lock’s primary funding formula. At the time, a decade ago, that action was said to be the key for unlocking funds for, and finishing, the lock. Yet the work has dragged on through the coronavirus pandemic and the highest inflation in 40 years.

Perhaps the House Appropriations Committee, on which the congressman sits, was tired of him talking about the lock and voted to give him the money to — we hope — finish it.

Which brings us to the salient point of how Congress members like Fleischmann can both be conservative — as he has stridently claimed to be — and accept so much extra federal money — as he will do if the current appropriations bills on the table are passed.

When Democrats reinstated earmarks in 2021, the 3rd District congressman said Democrats had warned the GOP that all of the money would “go to blue [Democratic] districts” if members did not agree to the new process. And he added the 1% of discretionary spending in the federal budget that covers earmarks is 1% that President Biden doesn’t get to spend.

In other words, Fleischmann is in a Catch 22, like all conservative House members. If he brings home too much “pork,” he might be called a free-spending RINO (Republican In Name Only). If he doesn’t, he’ll be tagged an ineffective representative for his constituents.

The White House did not include any money for the new lock in its fiscal 2024 budget, so the Ooltewah Republican’s ask for a transportation upgrade on one of the nation’s primary waterways is hardly a “Bridge to Nowhere.” However, opponents of pork spending may quibble that some of his other worthy requests — an Alton Park connector trail, research and development projects involving the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, expansion of the United Way of Greater Chattanooga’s 211 system and police technology upgrades — might be funded with other than federal money.

When nearly everyone else is doing it — just as your parents always told you — it’s hard to resist. The number of House Republicans seeking earmarks jumped from just over 50% for fiscal 2022 to almost 60% for fiscal 2023 to nearly 70% — including previous resister U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia — for fiscal 2024.

Still, as we said in 2021, “it hardly makes sense … to refuse to participate and miss out on something important for [the] district.” And although the earmarks only constitute 1% of federal discretionary spending, until all congressional deficit spending is reined in, any amount above what is needed to carry on the day to day functions of the federal government is just more money added to the country’s $34 trillion-plus debt.

For now, though, that pork is mighty tasty for Fleischmann, for Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly, for UTC Chancellor Steven Angle, for Chattanooga Police Chief Celeste Murphy and for all who benefit in the wider community.