Charles Black, a former lobbyist for BKSH & Associates who now works as an unpaid volunteer for John McCain, is now saying that earmarks promote bad government and are totally “out of control.”

One of Washington’s most powerful critics of earmarks as wasteful and irresponsible use of taxpayer funds is Sen. John McCain.

Black, who has given up his lobbying practice to work as an unpaid volunteer for McCain, agrees.

“I believe that his philosophy is correct, that we shouldn’t have earmarks, and that it would be better government not to,” Black
said. “But when I was in the lobbying business, I played by the rules as they were. … There’s no doubt that earmarks have completely gotten out of control.”

Amazing how one’s tune changes when things like “career” and “money” are removed from the equation, no?

The main problem with earmarks is not so much that the federal government spends money at the local level (though that does present problems from the federalist perspective) but rather that they represent the perfect vehicle for quid pro quo arrangements among politicians.

Local kingmakers get politicians to fund special projects for them in exchange for supporting the politicians, and the politicians vote for one another’s pork as favors for each other. Ending earmarks wouldn’t end political corruption, but it would put a cork in one particularly virulent outlet for it.