Earmarks Simply Aren't the Problem: Cuts Need to Made on Larger Level Including Military

PolitiMO posted an interesting article on the divide over earmarks in Missouri. The final sentence of the article was the most revealing. "Misssouri is 9th in taking most earmarks, bringing in $346,784,080 (or $59.99 per capita) between 2008 and 2010."

Average it out. In the three years, Missouri has received just over $100 million per year in federal money for earmarks. Let's put this in perspective.

According to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources:

The typical Missouri vehicle uses approximately 600 gallons of fuel and is driven more than 16,000 miles each year. With more than 4.2 million registered vehicles in Missouri, that adds up to a lot of miles driven, gasoline consumed and money spent at the gas pump.

Let me tell you what else it means. It means a lot of federal revenue. Missourians pay the federal government 18.4 cents of taxes for every gallon of fuel sold. This tax is supposed to fund road projects and repairs, and earmarks are often used to return this money back to the state and your district. Do the math.

If you own one vehicle that meets the average according to the state of Missouri, you are paying $110.40 a year in federal fuel tax. According to PoliticMO, the average earmark equals $59.99 per person that gets returned back to the district. The population of Missouri is 5.9 million people.

According to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, there are 4.2 million cars in the state of Missouri. Based on these numbers, knowing that average car in Missouri sends the federal government $110.40 per year in taxes and their are 4.2 million cars registered in Missouri, that amounts to $463.8 million a year sent to the federal government for road repairs, improvements, and projects.

If anything, we should be mad more of our fuel taxes aren't getting returned to our state and districts and they aren't earmarking the funds from the fuel tax enough to improve our roads and to make them safer.

We are paying $463.8 million into the federal government in a year in fuel taxes. In return, we have only gotten $346.7 million in return in the form of earmarks over the past three years from 2008 through 2010.

The truth is politicians are using this earmark issue to make you believe they are cutting wasteful government spending, but the truth is these politicians like Billy Long who are pushing no earmarks, aren't willing to make necessary cuts in the federal budget from cutting out unconstitutional bureaucracies to a military budget that totals 46% of a military spending in the world.

Earmarks simply aren't the problem. They are a deception to make you believe the federal government suddenly has some kind of moral responsibility to its people.