The Wall Street Journal
Seat in Congress Helps Mr. Taylor Help His Business
Lawmaker Pushes Earmarks For Projects Near His Land; He Says District Benefits
'Grist for the Attack Mill'
By JOHN R. WILKE
October 11, 2006; Page A1
ASHEVILLE, N.C. -- Charles Taylor, wealthy businessman and banker, owns at least 14,000 acres of prime land in western North Carolina. He's also the local (Republican) congressman. So when he steers federal dollars to his district, sometimes he helps himself, too. Last year, Mr. Taylor added $11.4 million to a big federal transportation bill to widen U.S. Highway 19, the main road through Maggie Valley, a rural resort town in the Great Smoky Mountains. His companies own thousands of acres near the highway there and had already developed a subdivision called Maggie Valley Leisure Estates.
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The growth of earmarking points to a shift in the way Congress works. Most federal spending originates in requests by departments and agencies. The Transportation Department might seek funds to build a highway interchange, for example, or the Pentagon might ask for new tanks. The spending proposals are then put into legislation which must win approval by Congress. Earmarks are different because lawmakers can directly insert them into spending bills, often without public scrutiny. Many lobbyists and corporations have discovered in recent years that one of the fastest ways to get the spending they desire is to approach an individual lawmaker of either party on the House or Senate appropriation panel about an earmark. That has fed the growth in earmarks to an estimated $47.4 billion last year from $19.5 billion a decade earlier, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Earmarks range from pet projects -- such as Mr. Taylor's $500,000 earmark to help build a Teapot Museum in Sparta, N.C. -- to billion-dollar cargo-aircraft contracts that weren't sought by the Pentagon but are funded to keep jobs in a lawmaker's district. In California, Rep. Gary Miller steered $1.28 million to widen a road near an upscale shopping center he helped develop. The center is expected to include a Target store and 120 residential units. His business partner was Lewis Group, one of the nation's largest builders and a big contributor to his political campaign.
Federal prosecutors in Washington, Los Angeles and San Diego are looking closely at earmarking in the wake of the Cunningham case. At least four congressmen, including Rep. Jerry Lewis, a Republican from California who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, are being investigated for their role in earmarking or ties to lobbyists specializing in earmarks, people close to the inquiries say. Each lawmaker has denied impropriety. Mr. Taylor isn't known to be a target of any investigation. Prosecuting these cases will be difficult because an earmark only becomes illegal if the legislator is clearly acting in exchange for money or to promote his private business interests. Under the prevailing interpretation of the constitutional separation of powers, most congressional correspondence and deliberations are out of reach of prosecutors.
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Congress has done little to police itself, although lawmakers enacted an internal rule last month requiring members to sign their names to some earmarks. Mr. Taylor voted in favor of the measure, saying members should be willing to stand up for earmarks. He called such spending "absolutely essential" to rural areas of the country. Mr. Taylor also said that eliminating earmarks entirely wouldn't save money. "The same tax dollars would be spent," he said through a spokesman. "The decisions about where and how much would just be left to unelected bureaucrats." The measure has big loopholes and exempts appropriations bills the House already has passed this year. Because it is an internal House rule, not a law, it will expire when the current congressional session ends in a few weeks.
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